Suikoden Fantasy
by Tovath
Summary: During the Second Fire Bringer War the world of Suikoden combines with the World of Ruin.  Will the difference in culture and the change in magic spell everyone's destruction or will they like the phoenix forge a new world from the ashes of the old ones?
1. To Defeat Destiny

Chapter 1: To Defeat Destiny

o Kuput Forest o

The last place one would expect the captain of the Zexen Knights was the village of the most secretive of the Six Clans of the Grasslands. This was however where Lady Chris Lightfellow found herself. A girl named Yun had also said she could tell Chris about her father, Wyatt Lightfellow, once they reached their village. To finally find out how he died would actually be a great relief, since she had been wondering since she was little what had happened.

Chris looked up at the stone altar in the hollow of a particularly large tree. She had just come from a meeting with the Clan Chief of the Alma Kinan and needed a distraction from the information that she had been told, So she had taken a walk and ended up here. To the sides of the altar were other rocks. Unlike the altar stone these rocks hadn't been shaped in at all, but the way they were positioned was unlikely to be natural. _This must be a sacred place to them._

According to Yun and the Clan Chief there were destructive forces sought to destroy a True Rune. Also if they were to be trusted, then her father was the bearer of the True Water Rune and had fought in the Fire Bringer War fifty years ago and he was still alive. Both of these seemed unlikely to say the least. First off why would anyone want to destroy one of the Twenty Seven Runes. They were the source of magic . Many people considered them Gods.

Chris' head was running in circles the information about her father was almost possible, since if you bear a True Rune then you do not age, but that didn't answer what had happened to him. He just disappeared one day. If it was true, then why did he leave? Chris had been too young then to clearly remember him, but she could remember her mother wishing to see him one more time when she was on her deathbed. Him still being alive was the last thing Chris expected to hear.

Chris heard the crunching of leaves behind her and turned to see Nash coming up. She didn't know much about him, but she knew he was spying for someone. _ I just haven't found out who yet._

"What is it Nash?" she said,"Were you looking for me?"

"You, yes as well as something else," said Nash, "A quiet spot."

Chris' hand slipped down to her sword, but she didn't draw it. If Nash had been hired to kill her then he would have already tried. "Why?"

Nash didn't seem to take any notice of he hand being on her sword. "To talk with you. I must be lucky, I found both at the same time."

Chris relaxed slightly, "So what is it that you want to talk about?"

"I'm not comfortable with this." stated Nash.

"Oh," said Chris raising an eyebrow, "Not comfortable with being in a place that has such odd customs or are you not comfortable with the spying you are doing?"

"What spying?" asked Nash

"I am not an idiot, Nash. And don't say you're spying on Fred, because we both know it isn't true."

"Well, someone in Toran could be interested in the last member-"

Chris glared at him.

"Alright, I was sent by Bishop Sasarai of Holy Harmonia to sneak into the Grasslands." said Nash leaning back against a tree.

"Harmonia, so that is who you are working for." If Nash was working for someone so high up in Harmonia then this put a new complexion on things. Bishops were second only to Hikusaak, the High Priest, God and Leader of the most powerful nation in the world.

"I'm afraid I am, but don't worry I'm here for an internal matter."

Nash's arrogance had often bothered her since they first meet, but this time it was even worse, "How can it be an internal matter if you are out here? I might remind you that none of this area is Harmonia, even if you seem to be tying to take it over."

"The alleged reason for our current invasion if to eliminate the rest of the Fire Bringer band, but Bishop Sasarai thinks the timing is odd and that someone else is pulling the strings, so to speak. Its my job to look into this." Nash explained.

_A band that hasn't been active in the last fifty years and supposedly my father was part of, _thought Chris but what she said was, "And you think that this destructive force they just mentioned has something to do with it."

"I don't want to believe that, but it does seem to fit doesn't it? On the brink of the cease fire Zexen and the Grasslands rebounded with a full-scale battle. At the same time the Holy Harmonian army invaded." said Nash.

Chris winced thinking about what happened at the treaty meeting. Everything had been going well, the Six Clans seemed to want peace as much as the Zexan Confederacy did. Next thing she knew the Grasslanders were attacking and Myriam and Lanchet had been killed. They had to flee though the Karyan village to escape - _Concentrate on what is going on now. _Chris thought before asking "So why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want to get home to my wife. The fastest way to do so is to ask the Captain of the Zexen Knights for her help in solving this mess." said Nash, "So will you help me?"

"It is getting late. We should see about getting some rest."

o A secret hideout o

Luc picked up the mask he wore. He said it was to keep people from recognizing him, but Sarah thought it was actually because he didn't want anyone mistaking him for Hikusaak or Sasarai. He had not taken finding out that he had been created, using the same magic that was used to contain a rune, very well. At one point in the weeks following that revelation Luc had ended up crying on her shoulder. It had taken a lot of convincing to calm him down, but even so he hadn't been the same since then. He was much colder now and focused on his goal.

Luc had put his mask down now and was looking at the True Wind Rune that was on his hand. His goal was to break the chains of destiny and the control of the Twenty-seven True Runes, so that humans could control their own fates. This was a worthy goal, even if the lengths to which he would go to sometimes scared her. She had supported him from the start. She had helped him re-ignite the war between Zexen and the Grasslands.

Sarah looked over at the specially made rune orb that held the front half of the Gate Rune. Truly finding it was a blessing, for it had caused some change to be made in the plan. These changes to the plan were a hopeful sign. No longer did the plan involve the death of millions of people and likely Luc's own death. Now they just had to do one more thing to make the destiny of this world break its fangs on the the destiny of another world.

"Luc are you planning on doing after we are fin-" Sarah was interrupted by one of the current banes of her existence, Yuber, teleporting in. Sarah didn't know if his teleporting was because of the Eightfold Rune or just part of what he was.

"Did you find it?" asked Luc without moving.

"Of course it was easy to find the place." replied Yuber with a rather off putting smile, "It looks like the Alma Kinan will have some guests for the little ritual. One of them Sarah knows well."

A_fter tonight I won't have to deal with this 'man' anymore, _Sarah reminded herself before asking, "And who might that be?"

"Chris Lightfellow." Yuber grinned as he said that.

"Using an illusion to make myself look like her for two minutes does not count as knowing her."

"You were able to impersonate her well enough that the Lizards thought she had killed their chief." He laughed without humor, "Wish I had been there when the Lizards made it to the Treaty meeting."

_Why does he enjoy bloodshed so much? _Thought Sarah as Luc asked "Are the guests likely to cause any change in plans?"

"If they try they will easy enough to take care of."

Luc rose up and put on his mask, "Good, Tonight will be a night to remember."

o Alma Kinan Village o

Once it was explained, Chris didn't much like the sound of this Soul Sending ritual that the Alma Kinan were about to do, even if they said it was no different from being willing to lose one's life in battle. It was the middle of the night now, as far as Chris could tell. She had only gotten a few hours of sleep before her, Nash and Fred had been woken up by the sounds outside. Those sounds ended up being the villagers getting ready for their ritual. They were gathering at the altar Chris had seen earlier that day..

_ This is a bit much even if others call the Grasslanders barbarians_. thought Chris as she faced their Clan chief.

If Yun had said one word about not wanting to be part of it, then Chris would have gotten her out of this, even if she had to fight the whole village to do so. Yun wanted to do this for some reason, even if she would die from it.

The wind was picking up as if in response to the ritual. Then the wind picked up more and smashed the villagers to the left into the trees. _Someone is using a wind rune, a powerful one._ Chris drew her sword as she looked over to the left to see who had cast a wind spell. There were three people there. First was the man in black that she had seen earlier that day. Next was a man wearing a mask and the robes of a Harmonian bishop. The last was a blonde woman in blue robes who carried a staff. They might be the ones that Nash had spoken of, the ones who had incited a war between the Grasslands and the Zexen Confederacy.

The woman summoned monsters that the Alma Kinan archers could not hit. Chris tried to attack one of them, but her sword passed right though it. _An illusion?_

What Chris fought next though was not an illusion. The man in black pulled out two swords and rushed her. Chris moved to the right to avoid his first sword. She locked his second sword with hers, bad idea, he was beastly strong and almost dislocated her arm. _Not going to work to attack him head on, but there are other options. _Chris pulled power from her flowing rune and sent a wave of water at her enemy pushing him back.

"No" screamed Yumi.

Chris looked up to see that the Masked Bishop had gotten past their line of defense and was pulling out one of these odd round constructions that she had seen Runemasters use to store runes. It was about the size of Chris' hand and there did appear to be a rune in it. She was unable to see what rune it was though as he threw it at Yun. The minute it touched her, the world came apart at the seams. It was like a veil had been torn apart and Chris could see into the Emethral Plane.

o Emethral Plane o

Yun knew she would die from the soul sending ritual, but it would protect the Grasslands from the destructive forces that wanted to unmake one of the Twenty-seven True Runes. She was scared though, for after this she would be a spirit. After the ritual started though, the very destructive forces that she sought to stop had shown up here. Yun hurried to finish the ritual, but turned to see one of the forces of destruction, the Masked Bishop, throw something at her. It was the front half of the Gate Rune. When it hit Yun, her whole body jerked as pain flowed though her.

Though the pain, she saw a a vision of a dying world. The magic there was odd, for the people there didn't use runes and most people hadn't believed that magic existed until a year ago. Some still didn't. The reason that the other world was dying was because a man named Kefka. He could see her, just like she could see him.

Kefka reached for Yun and more pain flooded though her. Mountains clashed and the seas roiled while she tried to keep the worlds from being damaged too badly. After what felt like hours, but probably wasn't a new world was created from the two old ones. Kefka released Yun and she dropped limply to... not the ground, for there was no ground here, but a surface. As she watched he proceeded to absorb what was left of the Front Gate Rune. Yun saw the glowing forms of the other True Runes attack Kefka for his impertinence. _Good, they will destroy him._

Kefka's destruction did not happen. Instead he pulled the ego out of the five Elemental Runes. Yun didn't know how he had managed that for the True Runes were the source of magic. It was horrifying, but he was not able to do this to the other runes. Whether this was because The True Runes were defending themselves, _some have shifted shape_, or that Kefka didn't understand how their magic worked Yun did not know, _maybe it's both_.

Kefka's eyes darted around and fell on Yun once again. He smiled and Yun knew that she needed to get away right now, but could not force her body to move. _This isn't the physical world, if I just concentrate. _But it was hard to concentrate with Kefka reaching for her. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. She wished that someone would come to save her.

. Someone did. He appeared between her and Kefka. This being looked mostly like a muscular man, except for the horns and clawed feet.

"What, you think you can stop me now, when you weren't even able to stop me from making your daughter my slave?" said Kefka to the newcomer, then he laughed. He had a most awful laugh, "I used the Slave Crown on her. She was a great weapon, able to kill fifty soldiers in under three minutes with her magic when under my control. It was great fun."

Yun couldn't see the being's face from where she was, but from the tension in his shoulders he was angry.

Kefka continued to rant without a care, "I killed you once already...no wait that was_"

"You didn't kill me. I gave up my life freely so others would have the power to fight you." The newcomer then stuck his hand into what was left of the True Water Rune. He gave himself up to the True Water Rune. Kefka had torn out the sentience of the Rune, but the being returned it by giving it himself. He was now the True Water Rune.

"Come, my friends, let us rout the accursed one." said the new True Water Rune.

Yun saw a being with skin the color of the ground after a wildfire, and a mane the color of embers, then a green bull, an old man with a long beard and a vaguely horse like creature with a horn in the middle of it's head, appear in the same way the True Water Rune had. They each took on one of the Elemental Runes.

"Have the Espers come to fight me now? Aren't you a bit late?" Kefka said laughing, "Come on I have killed hundreds of you and I don't mind killing you again, and again and again."He broke off, laughing manically.

None of the Espers, if that is what they were called, said anything. They started attacking Kefka the moment they were able to. To escape Kefka jumped back to the physical world. Yun could not follow him back, for she no longer had a physical body to return to. The ritual was complete, but it had not ended in the way it was supposed to. _What am I to do now?_ She had no idea. _This is not how things were suppose to happen._

o Alma Kinan o

The world snapped back into place for Chris, but things were different now. For one thing, there were giant metal beams, too large for any human, dwarf or lizard blacksmith to have made, sticking straight up into the air in a circular formation around the glade they were in. The center of the glade now held three statues and a man with odd taste in clothes. That man was giggling like a mad man and he looked dangerous.

"Halt, who might you be?" asked Fred as the man stepped forward.

"Oh you don't know, what fun, I'm Kefka. You sound like, like a two bit hero in a play." said the man

Chris was only half paying attention to this Kefka. The rest of her attention was focused on the destructive forces. Their leader was down on the ground clutching his hand and the woman was kneeling beside him. The last man in black had obviously decided to take care of the threat that this Kefka posed, at least that was Chris' best guess for why he tried to stab Kefka.

Kefka dodged him and said, "Bye, bye, I'm going to kill you now. Light of Judgment!" A beam of light formed between Kefka's hands and shot at the man in black slicing off half of his face. That didn't stop him but it did slow him down some.

_ By Sadie, what rune has the power to do that? _thoughtChris as she ducked behind one of the statues while Kefka continued to rant. He seemed to like the word kill, for he was using it a good deal.

"That should have been stronger. I will get back at those damnable Runes and those stupid pieces of Magicite for going against me. Next time I use ..." Kefka trailed off and started giggling manically. His next hit killed the man in black. Then Kefka reached down and tore the man's rune out of his hand and plopped it into his mouth.

"Ouu, they're like little eatable statues." giggled Kefka.

The statues that had appeared when Kefka did started glowing red and one exploded _ How in the six hells does a statue explode anyway? _But Chris didn't time to think anymore then that because some of the shards rammed themselves into her arm. At first the pain from that was just the normal pain if getting shrapnel in one's arm. Then her arm started to feel like it was on fire.

"Give that back. It's mine." Kefka said moving forward towards Chris. Fred stopped him before he got far.

The burning sensation was all though Chris' body now and her sight was blurring up. No that wasn't quite true, she was just seeing something different. Magic, that's what she was seeing, the threads of the sealing spell the woman of Alma Kinan were weaving – It would be completed some if they weren't interrupted and the spell that Kefka was forming to kill Fred.

Chris moved forward fast and was able to knock Fred out of the way of the spell just in time.

"Oh a stubborn one, aren't you. You can be my test subject for my new spell." said Kefka. "I believe it will be a delightful way to kill."

Kefka might be calling that a new spell, but Chris recognized The Shredding when she saw the blades of air coming at her. She could also see the web of magic forming the spell and she was able to avoid most of it, but she was slammed into one of the beams of metal as the blades of wind cut into her in several places. Fred hadn't fared so well. Chris wasn't even sure if he was still-

"I hate, hate, hate, hate annoying idiots who don't know when to give up. I will kill you slowly after I take back the magic you stole from me." Chris had no idea what Kefka was talking about. She was just hoping to the Goddess Sadie, or the Grasslanders spirits, that the sealing spell would be complete before Kefka was able to get another spell off.

The other two statues exploded, just as the sealing spell trapped Kefka in its grip. Chris' eyes burred again and her arm hurt even more now. She felt the sensation of movement, but wasn't sure if she hadn't imagined it. Her body felt so weak. Her legs collapsed under her. She felt some one catch her before she hit the ground.

AN:

Yes a new story, some of you are probably going "but you haven't finished 'Curses Aren't the Only Change' yet." If that is the case then I don't quite know what to tell you. This story here started as an outlining exercise. I have learned a good bit from doing this. The problem is that one of the things I have learned is that my outline for CATOC is a mess and needs to be redone before I am able to move forward with that story. I don't know when I will have the time to do that with all the RL things going on.

Anyway I need to stop talking about my other story here and talk about this one. As I said earlier Suikoden Fantasy started as an outlining exercise, this means that I have the whole thing outlined (well all of the first book at least) This should mean both that it will be a tighter story and I will be able to update it more often.

Notes on the revisions:

On the suggestion of changeling, over at David Farland's Writing Groups, I have added Yun's perspective to clear up some confusion. Thanks go to Rydia Asuka for prereading this.


	2. The First Day of a New World

Ch 2 The First Day of A New World

o Wilderness inside the Zexen Confederacy o

_Strange dream, _thought Celes as she opened her eyes. The second she pushed off her worn out blanket, Sabin was by her side.

Big bear of a man that Sabin was he ended up looming over her."You alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" she asked.

"Something weird happened last night." said Sabin, "The whole world seemed to waver like a heat mirage."

Celes got up and looked around their rough camp. It was nothing more than a fire and their packs really, although Sabin had an actual bedroll, _which I did not let him give me._ Before she asked, "Why didn't you wake me?"

"Sun and sand, I tried! You wouldn't wake up."

Celes was normally a light sleeper; she would wake up at the slightest sound, because that sound might mean someone's death. The fact that she hadn't woken up with Sabin pounding on her was proof that 'the whatever it was' was not just a dream.

."I dreamt that our world had been combined with another. As odd as this might sound, that dream may have been a vision." _Or my mind is overstressed_. She would have plenty of reasons for this to be so, starting with Maranda there was a whole mess of death, betrayal and revelations she just as soon not have known. By the Floating Continent she was fighting against the Emperor she used to follow. _If I had just moved faster then. _Many had died because of that. "I need a few minutes to think."

Celes thought better when she moved around, so she started her sword drill. As Celes went through the precise movements of her drill, her thoughts kept returning to her dream. Another world being combined with theirs could be bad. If the dream was correct then Kefka was sealed up. That was good, but him being dead would have been better. The part about the Twenty-seven True Runes _whatever those were_ and the Warring Triad's explosion didn't sound like anything but trouble, in her opinion trouble was too mild a word to describe anything to do with magic. If that dream had been anything more than ramblings of her overstressed mind then she knew that with her 'gift' of magic she was going to end up in the middle of whatever trouble was going to happen.

Her sword drill complete, she sheathed her sword and scanned the perimeter of their rude campsite. There were now as many tufts of green grass as there were yellow and brown. In the distance it looked like there might be a road. She soon noticed a blackberry bush that hadn't been there before. The bush was perfectly normal, not warped or deformed in any way. It was however full of juicy berries. There was only one place that the bush could have come from, the other world.

"Sabin, you have to come here." _Is it because Kefka is sealed up?... no,_ i_t must be from the other world_, she thought. _maybe things won't be all bad if the world is alive again._

The blackberries were a welcome addition to breakfast. Neither of them had eaten fresh fruit in the past year. Ever since they failed to stop Kefka from gaining control of the Warring Triad, plants had not been growing right. In fact, there was not much of anything else for breakfast.. Some meat would have been nice, but there weren't any game animals to be found anymore, probably all eaten by the monsters roaming the land. She tried not to think about what they were going to do for lunch or diner. Food was one of the many things they were running low on. The last village had been Tzen; there was hardly enough food for the villagers to survive the winter. The two of them had felt guilty about taking what they had. While eating Celes explained about her vision, about how the worlds had combined and Kefka had been sealed up due to the heroism of Chris Lightfellow and the mages of Alma Kinan.

"I wonder how everyone else is taking the world changing like this?" said Sabin when she finished. The unsaid 'are they still alive?' hung in the air for a moment. It seemed that he thought she knew what she was talking about.

"If they can survive the world being destroyed then they will survive this." That still meant that everyone had to survive not only the fall from the airship but also the continents being torn apart and all the other stuff that happened. She wasn't even sure how she survived that, but she knew that Terra had... _Wait, how do I know that?_ "We'll find them. Any ideas of where to look for the others?"

"Celes, I have been chasing after rumors for the past year, trying to find anyone else - and then I just ran into you by accident."An accident that had involved him holding the whole weight of a collapsing house while she rushed in to save a kid.

"So we will run into the rest of them by accident." said Celes touching the bandana she had in her pocket. It was Locke's and would find him.

o Mobliz o

All of Terra's nightmares had Kefka in them, but this one had been different. It probely did not quite count as a nightmare because Kefka got sealed up where he couldn't hurt anyone anymore at the end. She hoped that it was not just a dream, despite the devastation Kefka had wroth in Alma Kinan. This nightmare had a vivid quality that wasn't there in true dreams. _Need to find out for sure._

Terra got out of bed and went into the main room of the underground home of Mobliz's survivors. She was the oldest one here. She thought that she was about nineteen, but that fact was unsure. There were still so many holes in her memory that even a fact like that was unsure. She was fairly sure that she didn't want to remember any of those missing years, but memories often came creeping back in her dreams. _The dream last night hadn't been one of those, though,_ Terr thought as she ran her hands though her green hair.

The main room was dark as always since they were underground. The only light was from the fire. By the smell of it Katrin had used some of her ever shrinking stock of spices for the broth this morning. It was very good that she had been able to salvage those when the world was destroyed. The spices at the very least helped everyone to forget that they were eating basically the same thing every day.

Duane was over by the beds working on fixing some loose stonework. He was using their sole kerosene lamp to have enough light to do so. _We are getting low on oil for that._

The door to the stairs going up towards the outside slammed open. "Mama, Mama,"

Terra looked up afraid something was wrong, but no, Caspian looked happy and excited, not scared. It felt odd hearing all the kids call her mama, but it was a good kind of odd.

"What is it?" she asked as he caught his breath. He must have run the whole way down the stairs. _What would make him do that?_

"Mama, there's green plants outside!"

"Really," _if this was truly a new world then maybe... _"Let's go see."

They walked up and out of their underground home with some of the others following. Outside a light breeze was blowing though the abandoned buildings and sure enough at the edge of town there were patches of green grass intermixed with the dying brown and yellow grass everyone had gotten used to over the past year.

"Does this mean Kefka is gone?" asked Duane in a tone of wonder.

"He was sealed up," said Terra without thinking.

"How?"

"I saw it in a dream," Terra didn't have a chance to explain more.

At that moment,.a woman appeared in front of them. Her hair was so light in color that it looked almost like silver. She looked strong and well fed. She also looked badly torn up. Without thinking,Terra stepped forward to catch the woman She noticed as she did so that several of the more timid kids had run back inside..

Terra almost dropped the woman when she realized that she recognized the woman from her dream. She was the one who had fought Kefka. Her name was Chris Lightfellow and she was still alive, but badly wounded. There was no way that Terra was to let Chris die here. Kefka had killed enough brave men and women already.

"Quick, Kev, go get the medical kit." Terra stood up, "Duane, can you carry her back? She is one of the people who helped seal Kefka."

Duane picked up Chris carefully did so she wouldn't get hurt any worse then she already was. When they got back, Kev had gotten what few medical supplies they had out. They and the little bit of magic she could still use would have to suffice.

When Duane put Chris down on one of the better beds, she opened her eyes for a moment, but it didn't look like she actually saw anything.

"Don't worry, I'll see what I can do to heal you." Terra wasn't sure if Chris heard her, but Chris' body did seem to relax some.

Fortunately, for the most part the wounds Chris had sustained were shallow cuts. All that was needed was to make sure to get all of the cloth fibers out of the wounds before pulling on her magic to get the muscle fibers to re-knit leaving behind undamaged flesh. Only a few of the cuts left so much as a scar. Chris' left arm, however, was another story. Terra knew from her dream that there should be shards of stone in Chris' arm, but she couldn't find any. Since that Statue had actually been one of the Warring Triad this was even more worrying than trying to pick small pieces of stone out of her arm would have been. Somehow, Terra didn't think that having the source of a world's magic shatter and disappear into ones arm was good for one's overall health, but she had no idea of what to do about something like that. After a moment of hesitation, she tried to use Cure on the wounds of that arm. The only effect the spell had was the grimace of pain that passed across Chris' face. _This could be bad,_ thought Terra as she wrapped bandages around that arm and went to go get some rest herself. She had healed worse before, but not recently.

After she was done resting she was going to scout around outside. Terra doubted that the only change that had occurred when their world combined with another was some green plants, as good as it was to see them. Maybe she could find some way to solve the problems plaguing them.

o Chisha Village o

Jimba woke from a nightmare that involved his daughter, Chris getting almost killed by someone and their world combining with another. He was glad it was just a dream until he saw the True Water Rune on his hand again, then he was not sure if he was awake yet. It should be impossible for the seal on his rune to just break and the rune to return to him like that. What had just happened?

:_Any number of things, but if it helps, I don't think your daughter is dead._: there was a pause, :_and just to make things clear, no you are not still dreaming_:

The voice surprised Jimba greatly, but truthfully he had experienced stranger things in his long life. :_Who are you? Why do you think Chris is all right?_: He might not be much of a father but he did still care and if that dream was true then... :_and who was that bloody lunatic?_: Jimba stopped and realized with a start that he already knew the answer to the last two questions somehow and that chilled him to the core, if he knew things this way then... :_Who else knows this information?_:

:_You mean the list of names and faces? I would guess everyone on the list. Do I understand what this means, yes. It means that a whole bunch of really powerful people know that my daughter has powerful magic. Last time that happened the results were not good_: The pain in his voice- for the voice sounded male- was obvious as he said this.

:_We'll find a way to deal with it all right, but first could you please explain who you are?_:

:_Sorry, I am Maduin. I used to be an Esper until I died._:

That answer surprised Jimba, He had no idea what an Esper was, but the fact that Maduin said he was was dead, on the other hand... :_If you're dead then are you talking to me from the afterlife?_: His first thought was of his wife, Anne, who had died over a decade ago. He so wanted to tell Anna he was sorry for not being there when she died.

:_Sorry, I'm not in the afterlife. There are some things I wish I had said to my wife too. Where I __am is inside your rune._:

There wasn't much that Jimba could say to that without getting tearful, which he didn't have time to do. Today might end in a battle. _Six hells, why was Hugo's name on that list?_

Jimba quickly got out of bed to go find Hugo, hoping to talk with him before the battle that might happen started.

_:Who's Hugo?: _Maduin asked as Jimba ran out the door.

_:The son of Lucia, chief of the Karayan Clan.:_

o Budehuc o

Thomas was in his study looking at a letter when the one eyed mas came in. It was a very impersonal letter that had arrived a few days ago. It said that his father no longer admitted he had the affair that resulted in Thomas' birth. Thomas had very word of that letter memorized. It basicly said that his father found it politically inconvenient to be in any way associated with him after some trouble for the Council. _For just trying to do the job I was given._

Thomas looked up from his desk to see a black haired man with an eye-patch over his right eye. By his well worn armor and sword he seemed to be a mercenary.

"What can I do for you?" asked Thomas, hiding his nervousness.

"Did you notice anything different when you woke up today?" asked to one eyed man without preamble.

"I can't say that I have." Thomas wondered what the man was talking about.

"No I guess you wouldn't have yet, but they have. It might end up being to your advantage since it is less likely Zexen soldiers will be attacking anytime soon." the man raised an eyebrow, "Not that I know that for sure."

_Well, that would good good if it was true. _Thomas would much rather not fight anyone. "You say the world has changed, but you haven't said how or why?"

"Last night this world combined with another. I can't say exactly what has changed besides magic, but you are likely...You don't believe a word I am saying do you?"

"Well it does seem rather..." Thomas started fiddling with one of his quill pens.

"Ridiculous."

"I would never say something like that." Thomas noticed what he was doing with the pen and put it down.

"It does sound ridiculous though now that I have said it" The man said, "I am going to look into the truth of this. Try to stay alive until then."

The man turned and left. Thomas wasn't sure what to make of that conversation.

Thomas didn't believe anything the mercenary said right then, it was not until he went out by the front gate to check on Cecile that he realized that something was very different. One of the dogs had something odd in its mouth that looked... At first Thomas thought the dog had caught a squirrel, but taking a closer look the creature looked like someone had crossed a lizard and a bunny.

Thomas tried for several minutes to get the dog to let go of the lizard rabbit thing, but he didn't have much luck. When Cecile started chasing the dog it left in a hurry with the creature still in its mouth.

"Cecile, don't chase after him," Thomas called out before Cecile got to far, "Someone needs to watch the gate."

"Sorry." Cecile lowered her head contritely and her helmet fell over her eye.

"Don't worry," said Thomas, "Just be... I am depending on you to watch the gate while I go talk to someone."

Thomas asked all over for the one eyed mercenary, but he was not to be found anywhere. However Thomas did find out that the man was named Geddoe and led a band of mercenaries_, _

o Cult of Kefka Tower o

Sarah could hear voices above her head as she struggled to consciousness. One of the voices sounded harsh and sour; the othersoft and tired.

"Bring our guest," this last word was said with a sneer, "to the Favored as soon as she wakes up."

"Yes, sir."

It took her some time to realize they were talking about her. When she opened her eyes she saw that she was in a stone room on what some might term a mattress, but she called a bag of straw. There was only one person in the room with her. An old man who was siting in a beaten up chair. The two of them looked at each other for a moment before he said.

"Here drink this." as he handed her a cracked cup full of water. The water tasted a bit musty but Sarah was glad to have something to drink.

"We better get moving." the old man said when she handed the cup back.

She pulled herself up from the bed winching as she did so. When she got up she waited for a moment for her dizziness _Just how much power was being thrown around back there that I feel like this. _She then nodded to the old man, who opened the door of the small room they were in. He started to lead her down a cheerless stone hallway to an iron door.

"Where is Luc?" asked Sarah but as she did so she realized that she already knew the answer to her question. He was inside the sealing spell the barbarians of Alma Kinan had set up.

"I don't know who Luc is, but you are in the Cult of Kefka Tower and you are to see the leaders of this place, The favored of Kefka."

They stopped in front of a massive iron door.

"Be careful and make sure to tell them the things that you are good at first off. You don't want them to decide you are useless." said the old man

Sarah turned and looked at the old man for a moment then nodded. She went into the inner room wondering what to say. _What am I good at anyway? _She almost lost her voice when she saw the men inside the room. They were all wearing richly ornamented robes. She knew that even if she saw Leknaat again, after all Sarah had done in running away with Luc, Leknaat would not look that intimidating as these men did now.

"Are you a mute, girl?"

"No sir," _what to say, what to say, _"I am someone who knows how to free Kefka from the spell that has bound him."

"You think that you can break a spell that a God can not!" thundered one of the men.

Sarah took an involuntary step back. It was to late for her to back out of what she had just said, "With all due respect, anyone can be tripped up by magic they haven't seen. I can take you to where he is and I can free him." lip quivering she added, "I can create illusions too."

"You speak much too easily of magic, but we will put you to the test. If you fail you will regret it."

"I won't fail." That was true. She would do anything to to free Luc, who was also trapped in that spell.

o Wilderness around Mobliz o

The sun was high in the sky when Terra left to scout. There were any number of things that were needed, the most important being food. Now that plants could grow once more maybe they would be able to do some farming, although, and Terra might be wrong, late fall didn't seem like the best time to plant. Terra hoped she could find a town or something from the other world out to the west, because it had been sea over this way before. It was just a hunch. Maybe she thought so because she really hoped it were true, but Terra thought there should be something from the other world around here somewhere. She had no idea what she was going to do to get the things they needed if she did find a town, but she would figure that out when she got there.

Soon enough, Terra came upon a lake. On the other shore she could see some half timbered houses that look a bit like the one's she had seen in Jidoor. _Next comes the hard part, talking to the people there, _thought Terra as she started walking around the lake.

Terra was almost there when screams rang out, helpless screams. She ran towards them, heedless of the danger. A small village was being attacked by several Buffalax. Terra wasn't sure how much help she would be, for her fighting power had deserted her months ago. She wasn't going to just stand here though. She drew the sword that she always wore, even now she had realized her fighting power was gone, and headed into battle. She was able to distract one of them from a young woman, but then another leapt at her. Without thinking she drew on her magic and the Buffalax burst into flames. Within seconds it was just ashes..

This was a greater surprise to her then it was to the now dead Buffalax; She had not been able to use any magic, bar a simple healing spell, for most of a year. She didn't know why her magic had been slipping away from her before and definitely didn't know why it was back now. She was just glad that she would be able to protect others with it regardless of what might happen in the future.

o Chisha Village o

They were arguing; that is, Jimba was arguing with Hugo and Maduin was arguing with someone called Ifrit. Neither one was getting all that far though because they kept interrupting each other. Nothing throws off an argument like hearing someone talking in your head but not knowing what they are going on about because you only hear the half of the argument they are saying.

"What was that suppose to mean?" said Hugo. It took Jimba a moment to realize who Hugo was really talking to.

"Let me guess, Ifrit is the name of the esper in your rune." said Jimba. Hugo nodded. "We need to figure something out for this. It's one thing to have someone talking in your head, but this is gettingridiculous**." **_As if it wasn't already _Thought Jimba. "What are you arguing about anyway?"

The last was directed at Maduin who was nice enough to not mention that speaking out loud wasn't necessary this time, :_Ifrit thinks we should just forget about our lives before and just be the spirits of the runes. I think that is a bad idea and I would even if my daughter wasn't still alive, thank you very much. What about you?_:

:_Hugo didn't much like finding out that Chris is my daughter._: Jimba would have said, err thought more, but the was a great commotion outside. Both Jimba and Hugo ran out to see what was going on.

Outside there was a badly hurt woman from the Alma Kinan Clan. She had appeared a few feet above the ground and fallen on to it before anyone was able to catch her.

The woman was recognized as Yumi, who had been here a few days ago to help stop the Harmonian army from destroying Chisha. She had left to take Chris to Alma Kinan Village. _Likely the fact that Chris had helped defend Chisha was part of the reason Hugo was so upset right now. He had likely been thinking of her as 'an enemy to kill to avenge my friend Lulu' until then. _Jimba was very glad he had already told everyone what had happened in his vision. Otherwise he didn't know what everyone would be thinking, but it wouldn't be good.

Jimba would have helped with the healing but Lucia was striding over to them. From the look of it she was going to be giving him, orders as was her right as the clan chief of the Karayan Clan. Whatever it was must be important if she needed to talk to him now.

Lucia turned to Jimba, "We received a polite message from the Commander of the Harmonian army that is currently not attacking us. Hopefully these events have upset Sasarai as much as that wind attack fifteen years ago in Duncan did."

:_What did she mean by that?_: asked Maduin

_Having a voice in ones head is annoying, but better then the pressure of the Rune's old ego_, thought Jimba. He started to explain how while the Karayan Clan had been fighting on the Highland side during the Duncan Unification War Sasarai's unit had left a important battle after being hit with a spell from the bearer of the True Wind Rune, Luc. Then he had to explain that Highland had been a longstanding ally of Harmonia, so it had sent Sasarai's unit to support the King of Highland. And then why the Karyan Clan was involved in that.

"I'm guessing your guest asked a question."said Lucia.

"Yes," Jimba said sighing, "What do you want me to do?"

"Help me get ready for the meeting. We need to make sure this is not a trap." said Lucia fingering her whip.

o Wilderness inside the Zexan Confederacy o

The sun was high in the sky as Celes walked along the road she had spotted earlier with Sabin. That was harder then it sounded because the damned thing kept disappearing every few feet and than picking up again after a few feet. This was undoubtedly because of the worlds combining. There was no sign of any railroads or anything more advanced then wagons, which was much odder.

The two of them stopped at a crossroad to eat what little food was left. It wasn't enough to make more then a snack for one person. There was a spring nearby, so they had plenty to drink and they were able to refill their water bottles.

When Celes first saw the bunny run out onto the road she thought it would make a good lunch. That is until it pulled out an ax and she saw what was chasing it. Three pointy faced long tonged lizards. Those things were nasty to fight.

The lizards were also stupid enough to attack. Celes drew her sword and spun to kill one of the monsters but had to pull her strike at the last second. Some over-dressed fool decided to dart in and poke the lizard in the nose with a rapier. A very stupid thing to do. It doesn't hurt them and leaves you open for... Celes pushed the idiot girl out of the way of the break fluid the lizard spat while she threw an Ice spell at it. After all, the idiot likely didn't have a jewel ring to protect her from Break's effects.

Two seconds later Celes discovered that might not have been the smartest idea. The jewel ring wasn't working as effectively as it should have been. Her arm was slowly turning to stone.

"Shit, Sabin, Soft."

Sabin broke the back of the last lizard and ran over. He poured a Soft potion on Celes' arm and it returned to normal. Celes breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to the stupid girl who had almost gotten her petrified.

"Idiot! what were you doing? Did you actually think you would hurt that lizard with an oversized knitting needle! Do you-"

"Hey introductions first, arguing later, all right?" said Sabin. _Damn it he is right _thought Celes t_aking your fear out on someone else is not right, even if she is a moron_.

There were two men with the idiot who practically screamed attendant. One of them spoke up now. "Thank you. I am Reed and this is Samus. We are bodyguards of Lily Pendragon." Celes figured Lily was the name of the overdressed idiot she had saved.

"I am Sabin Figaro and this is Celes Chere," Celes noted he was using the short form of his last name, "We are travelers and noticed the land changed. We were wondering if you -"

Lilly interrupted Sabin before he could get any further "I wouldn't mind hiring some mercenaries."

We are not mercenaries." said Celes with some anger in her voice. Fighting might be all she knew but she had never fought just for money. She saw that Sabin was smiling about something. After a moment she figured out why.

_ What I had said sounded a good bit like Locke saying he is not a thief, doesn't it?_ Gods she missed that man. The only proof she had that he was alive was a bandana she had found wrapped around a bird. Whatever else happened she wanted to find him. She wasn't sure if traveling with Lilly would make things more or less dangerous, but it might be a good idea. "However, it would be smart to travel together to the next town at least."

o Nor o

Terra cleaned her sword. She supposed someone must have taught her to do that at some point, but she couldn't remember who. The end result of the fight had been three Buffalax dead, two fled and three townspeople wounded. She sheathed her sword and went to help the wounded.

Two of the wounded weren't hurt badly enough to need magical healing. The last one though had been gored in the side. _They already know I can use magic so it won't cause any more problems to use Cure, I don't think. _ It was easy enough to use Cure on him, for he hadn't yet lost to much blood, nor was the wound infected or poisoned. As she finished a man from the village came up to her.

"What Rune are you using?" asked the man. He was in the same simple non-patched clothes as the man Terra had just healed.

_What is he talking about? Runes? What are they?_ Terra realized that this was another world now and she had no idea what these people's views on magic were. _Is_ _he going to..._

Obviously some of her thoughts had shown on her face, "Don't worry, I won't hurt you. I just wanted to thank you and ask if you knew anything about either why the landscape has changed or what these monsters that attacked us were." He held out his hand, "I'm Aran, by the way "

"I'm Terra," She took his hand, not sure if she was suppose to shake it or use it to pull herself up, "I do know a bit about what is going on, but I'm not sure I have the time to explain though."

The man pulled her up but then her body decided to remind her that she had used more magic today then she had in the past year. She ended up stumbling a little bit and Aran caught her.

"Are you alright, lady?"

"Just a bit tired." said Terra trying to pretend she was fine.

"And hungry I reckon. Being it's about midday now."

Terra shook her head, "Some food would be nice, but I have to see that Mobliz has food first. The kids need food more then I do."

"Mobliz, what is Mobliz?" asked Aran

"Mobliz is,"_ How to explain, "_what is left of a town. We need some supplies rather badly."

"What's left of a town? What happened, a war?"

"Worse, but don't worry the person who did it was sealed up when..." Terra was feeling a little faint and unsteady on her feet, but she ignored that. She had to keep going.

"You alright? Look, here is what we will do. You come and get something to eat and tell me what you know."

"But-"

"Wearing yourself out and not eating is not going to help anything." he said, " We will pack up some food and other supplies for you to take back with you to Mobliz. That work for you?"

Terra nodded.

They walked over to one of the few buildings that didn't look like a house. It wasn't far, but Terra's limbs were shaking with exhaustion by the time they got to it.

"It's a good thing you stopped the monsters before they got this far. We have a pot going here and everyone eats together during the harvest." Aran said as he opened the door. Inside was a big oven and the place was full of delicious aromas. A woman came forward to greet them.

"This is my wife, Erin" Aran said as she came over.

"What was all the noise outside?" Erin asked her husband.

"Monsters. They're all gone now. Everyone is fine."

Terra didn't so much sit on one of the benches as collapse in to it. Aran handed Terra an apple as he to sat down. The apple was gone in moments. It was crisp and juicy.

"I take it you like apples." said Aran

"Haven't had much to eat recently," Terra admitted, "Could I bring some home with me?"

"What, apples?"

"Other food too, please." said Terra.

"Of course, I told you I would give you some supplies, didn't I?" said the Aran smiling. He motioned to Erin. "Can you get our hero some food?"

Terra wasn't sure what to think about being called a hero, but she put that thought away after seeing the bowl of a good smelling stew and fresh baked bread with butter. _How long has it been since I have even seen butter?_ She started eating right away.

"I need your help getting together some food and other supplies for this young woman and a few others." said Aran to his wife.

"I'll do that. Poor dear, you can come by my house to get some new clothes. Yours are pretty worn out and there are a number of big tears in your shirt." said Erin looking over Terra critically.

"She got the tears from fighting off those monsters I was talking about. I doubt you should call someone that can kill monsters like that a poor dear. She might get offended."

"It's fine, really" said Terra after swallowing the bread she was chewing. _Why would anyone get offended by something like that?_ Putting the thought from her mind, She tucked into the hearty meal before her.

Terra put down her spoon with some difficultly after her second bowl of stew. At some point Erin had left without Terra noticing, Aran was still here though. "You wanted some information?"

"Yes, just start at the beginning."

Terra thought for a second, "I'm not sure where the beginning is."

"Well then start with what happened to Mobliz."

"Alright, about a year ago Emperor Gestahl and Kefka revived the Warring Triad. This caused widespread-"

Aran held up his hand. "I don't want to stop you, but I don't have any idea what you are talking about."

"Sorry, I guess you wouldn't. That was from before the worlds combined."

"Wait, what?"

"That's partly why I didn't know where to start. There's just so much to tell. I think telling what I know about the worlds combining would work. I got most of this information in... in a vision, so I don't know how accurate it is." She proceeded to tell Aran all about her dream.

After she was done, she asked about the other towns around the area.

"There's a castle not that far here. They keep changing castle masters, none of the arrogant whelps last for long it seems. Much better not to worry about them."

"You are being silly, husband." said Erin, who neither of them had heard return. "Tella said the current castle master was a nice boy, unlike some of the others."

"Humf, a nice boy is not something you look for in a lord, besides it is not like he will be there for long."

Erin turned to Terra, "I have seen about getting some food together for you. My husband can finish with that while we go get you some clothes and other supplies." she said

The food had really helped Terra noticed because she wasn't feeling half as worn out as she walked with Erin over to her house.

Once they were inside Erin said "Aran told me there were some kids." She started taking things out of cabinets, "I have some old clothes that my son has outgrown and here is some good soap that Layon made. Now where is a good bag to put this stuff in?"

Terra was completely out of her depth by now and had no idea what to do. She wished that one of her friends was here, but she didn't even know if any of them were still alive, _wait I do know Celes is alive ... somehow._

"Here, try this one on." Erin's voice interrupted Terra's thoughts and she took the shirt Erin handed her, "Go on, take off your shirt and try that one on."

"Thank you." said Terra

Terra did so and Erin looked at the scars on Terra's chest. Terra winced, _next she is going to ask where I got those scars and I can't remember where I got most of them. The few I can remember I don't want to talk about. _ She put on the shirt she has been given and before Erin could ask anything she left _No one should have to hear about something like that._

The villagers had they had finished packing up her supplies while she was with Erin. "Thank you for doing this."

"No, thank you for saving the village." Aran motioned to the supplies, "This is nothing, we had a good harvest this year. Will you need any help getting all of this back?" He smiled warmly to Terra, "You are welcome to stay here if you want."

Terra shook her head, "I have to go."

o Chisha Village o

The parlay with the Harmonian Army was to take place on the hill in front of Chisha village. Behind Jimba were the grape field that the Chisha Clan was known for. From where he stood with Hugo, he could here Lucia greeting the Harmonians

The plan was for Hugo and Jimba to wait out of sight, but not out of hearing. They were to wait until Lucia called for them. Jimba hoped that Hugo was paying attention to what was being said on the other side of the hill, for their Clan chief was doing a very good job of keeping the enemy commander off balance. Someday Hugo would have to do that himself.

Soon enough it was time for them to talk to Sasarai and find out if he knew anything more about these changes in the world. Lucia called them over and left. Jimba took control of the meeting. After all he was the eldest one here.

"I think the first thing we need to do is hear as much of the story as possible. Since Maduin can't speak for himself why don't I tell his part first, then hopefully we can figure out what to do from there." Jimba said. There were no disagreements, so he asked Maduin to start.

:_At the moment the worlds combined I looked to see if there was anything I could do. I saw the flow of magic._ _The magic was like one of those blankets that my wife, Madaline, used to like to weave. There were big tears, rends and knots in it. Kefka had created several of these rends when tore out the ego, or maybe the word should be sentience, of the Elemental Runes. These tears were threatening the whole piece. I thought that maybe if I used myself to fix one of the tears before it got worse and started affecting my daughter, than I would be able to protect her for once. I guess the others followed what I did.: _

Jimba repeated this out loud. Aside from that piece of information they found that all three of them knew the same thing and they were all equally confused by it. So in the end, the only positive thing that came out of the conversation was that they knew they weren't alone in being confused, which was no small thing.

o Budeduc o

It was afternoon when the delegation from Nor arrived. Thomas couldn't guess why they would be here now, unless there was more to this worlds combining then he had thought.

"Lord Thomas, we have come to ask for your protection."

Thomas' jaw dropped. This wasn't what he had excepted at all. "Um, why? I mean I will be glad to help, but you never seemed to need it before."

"I guess we do have a tendency to keep to ourselves." said Aran, "but will you help us?"

"I already said I would," _I just hope I can _"What do you need help with?"

"This'll take some telling. You see, we got attacked by monster... Aran told of how a young green haired woman named Terra had saved them. A number of things that this Terra had told them matched up perfectly with what he had been told earlier by the one eyed mercenary named Gedoe. It seemed likely that it was true, but he had no idea what to do about any of this, so he asked.

"So what would you like me to do?"

They looked surprised at this, likely it wasn't something they expected a castle master to say. They would no doubt like something like 'I will send my soldiers to kill all the monsters,' but he couldn't do that. He only had one actual soldier. There were a number of people around who could fight though as resent events had shown.

"Could we bring our families here where it is safer?"

"Yes, that is a good idea. Will you need help moving supplies or anything?"

"Yes, we got most of the harvest in but not all of it and there is a good bit of packing we need to do."

o Brass Castle o

The next town was a well built stone fortress that would be able to hold off a large army if properly manned and lead, yet it didn't look like the wall would stand up to much sustained canon fire. Fortunately the gates had not yet been closed for the night, so they didn't have any trouble entering. Inside the walls, the roofs of the buildings didn't look burned or otherwise damaged and the people were cheerful and full of life. It seemed to be set up so that there was one main street down the center with other smaller streets radiating off it.

"This is Brass Castle," said Lily acting like she owned the place, "Maybe Chris will be here."

"Chris?" Celes had heard that name before but not from any person.

"Yes Chris Lightfellow, she is a friend of mine. She is the Captain of the Zexen Knights." Lily said throwing back her hair in a calculated gesture.

Remembering her vision, Celes said, "She won't be here."

"How would you know?" Said Lily. She gestured to one of her attendants, "Samus, go tell Chris I am here and ask if she would like to see me. Reed go see about rooms for us at the Inn. I will be dining at Telhan tonight." She turned back to Celes, her nose wrinkling. "We are going to a bathhouse, you stink and are not fit to be seen with someone like me."

Celes could think of any number of things to say to that but she didn't because Lily was right; She did need a bath, badly. They were a bit hard to find when wandering monster-infested wildness.

However any feeling of gratitude Celes might have felt were driven out of her head when they reached the bath house and she found out about a little custom of this other world.

"Wait, what? Communal bathing?" asked Celes.

"Where did you come from that you don't know that? Really where are you from?" asked Lily

"Nowhere. Let's get this over with." Man if she didn't need a wash so badly then she would have forgone the whole thing.

Fortunately the baths were empty of other people at this time so Celes didn't have to deal with anyone other then Lily who was complaining about how this wasn't a very good bath house. Lily might be complaining a lot, but she was very causal about disrobing around a complete stranger, or so it seemed to Celes. Even worse was the fact that she didn't seem to understand why Celes was reluctant to do the same. Since one can't take a bath with one's clothes on Celes did reluctantly disrobe.

Before Lily asked any questions, Celes said "They thought that flogging was a good punishment for Imperial Officer Cadets," in a tone that bespoke pain if she was asked about any of the other scars or burns. The bath was very awkward after that, not that it wouldn't have been anyway. It was also a quick bath, no soaking like it seemed one was supposed to do here. Celes didn't feel safe again until she was out of the bath, clothed and had her sword back by her side.

Celes didn't understand why Lily took them with her to dinner at the Telhan, but she was not going to complain about that since she would like to eat and had found out they did not use gil here, but some currency called potch. Soon after they got their food Samus showed up with the news that Chris was not at Brass Castle, just like Celes had said.

"All right, how did you know that Chris wouldn't be around?" asked Lily after a moment.

_Might as well tell the truth_, thought Celes, _who knows she might even believe it_ "I had a vision of her fighting Kefka when the worlds combined. Since this place isn't the one in my vision, I knew she wouldn't be here."

"A vision, so you have visions now." Lily's high pitched voice was attracting a good bit of attention by now. "If you are going to be like that I'm back to the inn."

"Don't you have to pay for the meal first?" said Sabin as Lily got up.

"Don't be an idiot. Reed already took care of it." said Lily as she flounced out.

Lily had created quite a scene. In fact two men in particular looked interested in them. One had swept back hair and a lean muscular build. The other was massive, he might even have been more muscular than Sabin as impossible as that sounds. They both moved like fighters. Sabin had noticed them too and they decided it was time to leave.

The men followed them out though. _This isn't going to go the easy way, was it?_ Celes and Sabin let Lily walk ahead, the little idiot hadn't even noticed the men. When they went around a corner they waited for the two men. Those two came up soon enough and Sabin grabbed the big one in a headlock knocking him into the wall a few times. Celes on the other hand just knocked the other one to the ground and calmly pressed the tip of her sword at his throat.

_That was too easy, either we are about to get attacked from behind or... _"Care to tell why you were following us?"

"We want to know what happened to our captain. From what we overheard it sounded like you knew something." the man Celes had pinned said with all the care that some who has a swordpoint at their throat normally exhibits.

"Your Captain is Chris Lightfellow?" said Celes

"Yes, we are member of the Zexen Knights." said the big guy

Celes withdrew her sword. "You should be more careful. Someone might mistake you for a less-than savory person and that wouldn't be good. Now where can we find a private spot to discuss this?"

"The Runemistress," the other man said, as he pointed to a sign down the street a little ways, "She would let us use her place. She was the one that told us about the worlds coming together. By the way, I am Percival and he is Leo."

"Leo huh, that is a good name. You should take care to not dishonor it." Celes said to the big man that Sabin had just put down.

Sabin looked at the two men then turned to Celes. "I'm not much for big conversations so I will go tell Lily where you are. If they try anything, you should be able to freeze them." Celes wasn't sure if that meant he thought it was safe or that if something happened it was best that he was on the outside and able to get help or if he just figured that Lily might notice that they were gone. That idiot stumbling into the meeting would cause more trouble than it was worth. Or he could be thinking about something completely different. Celes didn't know Sabin as well as some of the other Returners. She didn't spend more then a second watching him leave before following the knights into the shop.

As Leo explained why they were here to the Runemistress, Celes took the time to look around the shop. There were a number things hanging from the walls that had what Celes guessed were suppose to be mystical symbols. _Really, does stuff like this impress the fools that come here? _She looked over at the knights, somehow she doubted they were fools._ Who knows, maybe these things are actually useful in this world_. _Maybe._ After the Runemistress had put out a closed sign and introductions had been preformed all around they got down to talking.

"So do you know what caused the worlds to combine?" Jeane, the Runemistress, asked Celes. "I had a feeling of an evil force helping to bring the worlds together."

"Kefka would like being called an evil force I'm sure. You don't need to worry about him for now. He was sealed up. I know that Chris Lightfellow helped with this."

"Ah the Silver Maiden will always protect the Zexen Confederacy." That was a better title then Celes had ever carried.

"How would she do that?" asked Percival, "Lady Chris is no mage."

"She fought him so that others had the time to cast the sealing spell, and no I don't know anything about how that sealing spell was cast. She did a better job of fighting him than I have." Not that was saying much last time she fought Kefka she had ended in a coma for a year after failing to stop him.

"I think the first question should be why did you get so much clearer a vision than me?" said Jeane.

Leo didn't think so apparently, "Do you have any idea where Lady Chris might be now?"

Celes was about to say no when she remembered two things. One was that Chris had been hit with shards of one of the Warring Triad and the other was that when Terra had lost control of her magic, due to not understanding it, she had ended up with Ramuh. "Maybe but even if I am right, I am not sure if that will help."

"What do you mean?" said Leo.

"Magic attracts magic, so she might be near a friend of mine." said Celes

"I've never heard of magic attracting magic before." said Jeane, tapping an elegant finger along the side of her face.

"And I have never heard of Runes before." replied Celes

"So where can we find your friend?" asked Percival

"That is the problem." said Celes. Whatever was telling her Terra was still alive hadn't seen fit to tell her where Terra was.

"How can you not know?" said Leo

That was none of his business, "How can you not know where your Captain is?"

Before things dissolved into an argument Jeane changed the subject, to something Celes really didn't want to talk about.

"I wish I could see something imbued with the magic of your world." said Jeane,

_What, me? She had better not be implying..._ "How does magic work in your world anyway?"

Jeane giggled, "I could go on for hours explaining that. I will give you the short version, for now." She took a cage of wires out of its case and handed it to Celes. Inside the cage of wires floated a greenish gold lighting bolt. Celes turned it in her hands finding that it was only a flat picture. It looked like something Celes had seen in her vision. Magic was radiating from it; it felt a little like magicite.

If Jeane noticed Celes' reaction she gave no sign, simply continuing with her explanation. "Once a Rune Master, or Mistress, afixes a rune to your hand, you are able to use the spells within it. The more training one has in using a rune the more magic you can pull from a rune."

"How are they made?" asked Celes.

"Oh come on now, you don't expect me to tell you trade secrets do you?" said Jeane lightly.

"Last time I felt magic like that it was from the remains of a dead esper." said Celes

"And what are espers?"

"Beings with magical power."

"What are you implying?" asked Percival.

"Nothing. I just don't want more to die, because of the magic they hold." said Celes coldly.

"No, no, Nothing like that happened. The power of the runes descends from the Twenty Seven True Runes. The water gems mined in places such as Tinto are used to make normal runes Nothing had to die to make the runes." Jeane looked quite aghast at the idea. "I wish I had some artifact from your world so I could figure out how things are different. Is all the magic in your world related to death?"

"No, although it does seem so at times." _How many did Emp...Gestahl kill to 'revive' magic?_ Celes put the jewel ring on the table. "This ring might help. It doesn't seem to be working right anymore though."

Jeane picked up the ring, "What is this suppose to do?"

"Keep you from getting petrified, but it's not working right. It only slowed down the process last time one of the lizards spit at me."

"How are they made?"

Celes shrugged "They were dug up." and the fact that they existed might have helped convince Gestahl that magic did in fact exist. "They are relics of the War of the Magi."

"Oh, when was that?"

"About a thousand years ago."

"Do you have anything more recent?"

Memories of things that should never have been made flashed across Celes' mind "NO." shoves back her chair, " I will be going now."

"Wait please, will you be going to find your friend after this?" called out Leo before Celes got far.

"Doubt I will be able to find her and even if I do it's just a guess that your captain will be there."

"That is better then sitting around here until some jackass on the council declares her dead and assigns someone new to the post."

_I wonder if this Chris knows how rare this kind of loyalty is. _ "I will ask Sabin." said Celes as she left.

o Mobliz o

Chris had started to stir shortly after dinner, which had been a good one with the food Terra had gotten from Nor. As soon as she opened her eyes she asked "Where am I?"

Terra wondered how she was suppose to answer that. "Molbiz," she said as she came over to the bed that Chris was on. Chris had collapsed back into the bed after raising her head.

"Never heard of it." Chris paused and Terra wasn't sure if was because she was making an effort to not slur her words or just to collect her thoughts. "Where is Mobliz?"

"I would be surprised if you had heard of it. It is near by Nor now." said Terra trying not to let the worry show her voice, "How do you feel?"

"Awful. your name is Terra isn't it?"

"Yes, and you are Chris, right? Do want something to eat or drink? Katrina cooked a good meal."

Chris nodded. Terra wondered what was going through Chris' head right now.

AN: Thanks go to Serif, Bender boyboy and the Sandcrabs.


	3. Meetings

Chapter 3 Meetings

o Mobliz o

Pain that was the first thing that Chris noticed. It took several moments to realize that this meant she was still alive, which must be a miracle from the Goddess herself. Chris just wished the Goddess had seen fit to reduce her pain a bit more.

Chris opened her eyes and looked around, but her head was whirling so bad that she was having trouble making sense of what she was seeing. She saw that the bed she was in had only half of a footboard. Either her eyes were deceiving her or something had cut a large part of the footboard away. _Why would anyone keep using a bed that badly damaged? _She blinked, but her eyesight did not get less blurry.

The smell of food being cooked was wafting through the room and it reminded Chris of how long it had been since she ate, then she realized she wasn't actually sure how long that was. She lifted her head to try and find out where the smells were coming from. That action alone took almost more energy then she had, but she was able to see a group of people, mostly kids, over at the other side of the room.

One of them noticed her and came over. At first Chris thought that her eyes were not working properly, but the woman's hair was actually green. She knew that this woman's name was Terra Branford. _How do I know that?_ There were other things in her memory now that she had no way of knowing. She would have to think about those later when her head hurt less. She had to ask one thing now though.

"Where am I?" She had to know so she would be able to get back to Brass Castle. She was the Captain of the Zexen Knights. She had to get back to them.

"Mobliz," said Terra, looking down at her.

"Never heard of it." What had happened before she ended up here? Was that memory about the two worlds combining correct? "Where is Mobliz?"

Terra smiled. "I would be surprised if you had. It is nearby Nor now."

Chris wasn't sure exactly where Nor was, although she had heard of it. It was a small farming village, she thought. There were so many thoughts crowding Chris' mind right now that it was hard to decide which to think about first. She felt tired and hungry. It might be best to take care of those first.

"How do you feel?" asked Terra, interrupting her thoughts.

Chris' head was whirling worst now, so badly that she could barely hear what Terra was saying, "Awful. Your name is Terra isn't it?"

Chris concentrated on Terra's words to keep herself from slipping off into unconsciousness again "It is. You are Chris right?" at Chris' nod Terra asked. "Do you feel like having something to eat or drink? Katrin cooked a good meal."

"Yes, please."

The food she was brought was spiced a little oddly, but Chris hardly noticed. After the food was eaten she felt better. It was her intention to think about everything that had happened and all this new information she had in her head now.

o Brass Castle o

Celes was up with the sun. It was odd waking up in a bed again, last time that had happened things had not turned out well. The fact this well appointed room in an inn was very different then a worn out shack on a dieing island did not help much. _Waking up to find that it had been a year and the world was dying because I hadn't been fast enough to stop Kefka was one of the worst things that had happened. I failed and it looked like everyone was dead due to my failure,_ she thought as she sat up. Celes shook her head. Sabin was still alive, so the others must be too. Nothing good was going to come from dwelling on these thoughts. She had to keep moving and find the others: Terra, Edgar, Cyan and... Locke, especially Locke.

Lily was still asleep in her bed with her dark hair splayed out around her. It looked like she would be for several hours yet. Last night she had complained long and hard about sharing rooms, but there wasn't another room to be had and Sabin had been insistent. Quite odd since he didn't seem to care about his royal heritage. Yet he did argue with Lily despite the fact he was risking them not having a place to sleep.

Celes slipped out of the room without waking Lily. From the look of things she would have time for a full morning practice today, which was good because she had yet to regain the muscle mass that she had lost during that year she was unconscious. Not good; she needed to be in top form for when things got serious, and they would. They always did. She just wished she had a better idea of what was going to happen.

Celes was able to quickly find a side courtyard that was empty to go through her sword drill in. First stretching, then basics, then on to more complicated moves. Celes was nearing the end of a complicated sword drill called the Steel Dance when she heard a sound behind her. She whirled to meet... the weaponless older man wearing a breastplate and some fabric around the waist that could be a uniform. She pulled her strike before it sliced into him.

"Don't get behind me like that." There was a young boy about twelve dress in a simpler version of the mans clothes next to him. His eyes were quite wide. Celes felt sick thinking about what would have happened had she not pulled the strike. "sorry," that was a hard word to say, "Why are you here?"

"I am Salome Harras of the Zexen Knights. I was told that you are Celes Chere." said the man

Celes nodded as she sheathed her sword. Sir Harras didn't seem at all fazed that he had almost lost his head.

"Good," he said in response to her nod. "You had talked about finding Lady Chris."

"And Terra, as I told Leo and Percival yesterday the chances of success are rather low." Celes found herself drawing up into parade rest as she spoke and forced her body to relax, even if her mind would not. If Sir Harras noticed this he gave no indication of it.

"I am aware of this, but what exactly are your plans?"

Now that was the tricky part, Celes hadn't had any real defined plan since she woke up on that lonely island and found out what Kefka had done to the world. "I was going to follow the strip of land that has all of the dying plants and dangerous monsters until it dead ends or we find a town. The people there should have some information." That last part was a lie, she had no way of knowing if they would know anything.

Sir Harras didn't say anything about stupidity of the 'plan' although she had expected him to, instead he commented on the part that made sense. "I presume that following the dying plants is to make sure that you stay within the land of your world." Celes nodded and he went on to ask, "Can you and your... traveling companion ride?"

Celes thought that was a bit of a change of topic, but she indicated that both of them could. She had been one of the few people in the Empire who could ride a Chocobo, although due to the difficulty of getting them she mostly had been trained as infantry. She knew now why there was that difficulty, but she hadn't then. As for Sabin she couldn't imagine a prince of Figaro not knowing how to ride one.

"Good, it will take some time to gather supplies," said Sir Harras. "Let us meet here at the noon bell." A breeze picked up as he turned to go, rattling the shutters on the nearest windows.

"Right, can I ask who exactly will be accompanying Sabin and me?" Celes asked. This time she would follow the advice 'Try and find out about the people you will be working with beforehand.' It was good advice that Celes hardly ever followed.

"Roland Lesaurus and Percival Fraulein." He left with that boy following close behind.

Celes gave one moments thought to wondering who the boy was before turning her thoughts to gathering information. She would need Sabin's help with this.

o Mobliz o

The sound of people moving around was what woke Chris up this time. She opened her eyes to see that she was in the room that she dimly remembered being in last night. There were two things that she noticed right away that somehow escaped her notice before. One was that this room must be underground, because of the lack of widows of any sort. The other was that she wasn't wearing anything but bandages.

A young woman with sandy blonde hair who looked to be about seventeen was nearby. Best to ask her before panicking about this last fact.

"Where are my clothes?"

"Terra had to cut them off you to heal you. Here, I'll get you some new ones." The woman turned and pulled some out of a nearby chest. "Don't worry there was a blanket covering most of you last night. I'm Katrin, by the way."

After hearing that Chris was torn between relief and embarrassment. Chris sat up slowly and put on the clothes, trying to keep her face from flushing at that last piece of information. The clothes were so worn that they were as soft as a linen would be, even though they were rough homespun. As she did this she realized that she was much less worn out now.

"You made the food last night didn't you?" Chris asked after getting dressed

Katrin looked a bit surprised at this. "Yes, I guess you weren't as out of it as you looked."

"I just have a good memory for names." That ability had stood Chris in good stead many times in the past.

Terra came down the stairs at the far wall and came over. So _I wasn't imagining that last night. Her hair is green, I wonder why?_

"Thank you for watching her, Katrin." said Terra "It is good to see you awake. How are you feeling Chris?"

"Fine" _still worn out and I am not sure what's going on. I need to get back._

"Let's see what your arm looks like then." When Terra unwrapped the bandages from Chris' left arm all that was there was a few half healed scars. Chris had been expecting worse, even though she hadn't felt any pain from her arm since she woke up.

"You are a good healer," she told Terra, "Where did you train?" she asked looking straight into Terra's bright blue eyes.

"I just kinda picked it up." Terra looked like she was going to say more but was interrupted by the sound of a disagreement between two of the kids, which Terra had to go settle.

"My mother used to do the same thing when I was little." said Chris when Terra came back after a few minutes, "Are any of them yours?"

Terra shook her head, "Their parents died. Kefka killed them."

"Well at least they have someone who loves them." said Chris laying back against the worn headboard a little.

Terra had this look of shock on her face then she started to smile, "Yes they do, thank you."

"I was wondering if you had any idea about this," Chris searched for the right word, "information we have received, like the fact we know each others names."

"I don't know." Terra paused like she was worried, "What do you think happened to the espers? All I got was a flash of a symbol."

_Espers, where have I...oh right those beings I saw. Maduin, Ramuh and others, _thought Chris."Kefka did something to the Elemental Runes and they fixed it, I think. Is it important?"

From the look on Terra's face, yes it was, but she didn't say that, "Probably not, he was already dead."

o Open road o

A cool wind blew across Jimba's face as he lead a group towards the Kuput Forest to provide assistance to the Alma Kinan clan. He could see some people off in the distance coming towards his group. As they grew closer he recognized some of them.

The group was a motley bunch They were all well armed and most were wearing a jacket or overcoat of some sort. That was were any similarities in clothing ended through. Jimba didn't know any of their names but he knew they worked for an old friend of his who was leading them. Geddoe who was wearing a suit of the flexible armor you could get on the island of Kanakan. As they came closer Jimba saw Aila, a fellow clan member who he had thought was dead.

"Going to look into the truth of the vision, I believe we both had." said Geddoe as he came up.

Jimba nodded "More going to see if any help is needed, then going investigating, but yes. We had a woman from Alma Kinan appear at Chisha, literally appear out of thin air with out the use of a blinking rune. She was in pretty bad shape and hasn't regained consciousness yet."

"Ah, could you use some more help?"

"I won't say no."

They soon reached Kuput forest, but every time tried to enter the forest they ended upwalking out of the forest.

.

After the fourth time this happened Geddoe said, "Ramuh says that he might know a way to pierce the magic surrounding the forest."

"How? I was hoping that the wards would recognize me since I have been there many times before," said Jimba, "but that obviously isn't working."

"He says that he knows a way to look at the magic more closely, but it's dangerous to do this without being in a meditative trance."

"We need to take a break anyway everyone is tried."said Jimba. _:Maduin, Do you know anything about what this is going to intail?:_

_ :Only vauely I didn't really study much magic.:_

That was hardly what Jimba wanted to hear._ :How did you manage to do any magic if you never studied it?:_

_ :Instinct:_

_ :That doesn't... You can't do magic by instinct.:_

_ :Of corse you can. It's a good thing too, otherwise no esper would make it to adulthood.:_

Jimba wasn't sure what Maduin meant by that, but he had enough other things on his mind that he let it go for now. There were more important things to worry about _:Will your instincts be able to help me with what we need to do:_

_ :I will be right beside you.:_

Once they had stopped, Jimba settled down into a crossleged position and started a breathing exercise. He closed his eyes.

o ? o

And opened them in a realm of blue mist and colored threads. The first thing that Jimba noticed, even before the odd misty scenery, was the person beside him, Maduin. It was odd seeing him instead of just hearing him. He had straight horns on his head and clawed feet, but otherwise looked like a fit human. What he didn't look like was any race Jimba had seen before

"So that is how you look." said Maduin, his voice sounding just the same as before.

Jimba looked down to see that his clothes had a bit more formal cut and he had a straight sword at his side, not one of the large curved daggers that the people of the Karyan Clan used. The sword had the crest of the Lightfellow family on it. _This is getting weird, but then things haven't been normal for the last few days._

The others appeared then. He had never before seen Ramuh, but they had such a presence that who they were was unmistakable. If it wasn't for the aura of power surrounding Ramuh, he could almost have passed for a human.

He turned to Ramuh. "Mind telling us a bit more about this place?" he said gesturing to the foggy, blue landscape shot with threads of different colors.

Among the colors of the threads ware purple, blue, green, yellow and others that Jimba could not identify.. Some made elegant loops that made Jimba smile when he looked at them. Others gave him a sick feeling in his stomach.

Maduin spoke up,"We are in The Tapestry I saw aren't we?"

"Yes, The Tapestry is magic it's self. It looks very different here now and I haven't figured out all the new rules yet."

Ramuh opened his mouth then shut it again and rubbed his chin, "Do any of you know anything about shielding magic?"

"I'm not even sure what you mean by that. How will it help us now?" said Geddoe.

Ramuh blinked "What do you do when someone attacks you with magic?"

"Avoid the spell and get rid of the rune user." said Geddoe. Jimba knew from experience that this was true. That was how Geddoe lost his eye. He had charged though a whole unit of Harmonians to get at one particular mage.

"So there was no way to deflect magic in your world, I take it?" Said Ramuh, "we need to use shields, well a variation on them anyway, to separate the strands of magic that we are interested in from all the others."

"How long will this take?" asked Jimba, "We don't have much time."

The process its self should hopefully not take long, but you will have to learn the basics of shielding first."

These basics fortunately seemed to be easy to understand and and they soon got to praticeing Geddoe went first.

"I have never seen a human get this right on the first try." said Ramuh after Geddoe pulled up a shield.

"Ramuh, that might be because you know how to do do it." said Maduin

"What do you mean?"

"Well remember why Geddoe has magic."

"Because I have the True..." said Geddoe.

"I see what mean." said Ramuh. He shook his head. "Well right now that will make this task simpler. I assume you remember how to make shields Maduin."

Ramuh turned towards the threads and said, "Now you will have to keep the lines I have checked from separate from the others."

Jimba nodded, hoping that nothing went wrong.

Ramuh grabbed on to a light blue thread of magic. It writhed around in his hand. "Whoa," Ramuh held the thread for a moment, looking at it. "It seems this is just a loose leftover from an illusion spell."

Jimba, Maduin and Geddoe tried to put a shield around it to keep it separate from the others, but the thread jerked around and broke the shield. .

Then everything jerked and they were thrown out of the Tapestry.

o Kuput Forest o

They had failed. Jimba did not know how many people would die because of their failure to find Alma Kinan, but it was likely that there would no longer be six clans in the Grassllands any more. There was nothing to do now but go back to Chisha and take steps to protect the other five clans. He didn't even know why Ramuh's plan had failed . That really worried him.

When they made it back to Chisha Jimba found out about the All Clan meeting and went looking for Geddoe who he soon found.

"Leaving?"

"Yeah I have more concrete things to worry about, like the fact that they might know that I have a True Rune up in Harmonia now.".said Geddoe crossing his arms.

"That would cause you some problems, wouldn't it," Geddoe had been part of the Harmonian Southern Frontier Defense Force for a number of years now, Jimba was sure that he had stopped any number of Harmonian plots from that position, "They may not know yet though. Hikusaak hasn't been very active in his government in the past few decades and the only other active True Rune that is confirmed that they have is the True Earth Rune. Its bearer is about ten miles north of here. I think it will be a while before he is able to return to Harmonia. Do you mind waiting until after the All Clan meeting?"

"Active runes yes I see what you mean. We did get less then twenty seven names didn't we?" said Geddoe. Jimba had known Geddoe would pick up that he meant the Runes that currently had a bearer. They both knew that Harmonia was collecting True Runes, but couldn't find bearers for most of them. "But why should I stay for this meeting?"

"There were a number of odd things leading to the collapse of the truce meeting with Zexen that throw what truly happened into doubt." He was of course refearing to how peace negasations fell apart with the Lizard Clan Chief's assassination.

"I see what you mean. The tracks of the 'knights' that killed the Lizard Clan chief were not deep enough for someone wearing that much armor."

"See you should tell the Clan Chief that." said Jimba, "Besides do you really think that it a good idea to go into danger when your rune is distracted."

"All right I will stay for the meeting." Geddoe laughed, "Ramuh is very insistent about getting his safe area set up after all and I would hate to disturb him."

o The Cult of Kefka Tower o

Sarah was waiting for preparations to be completed so they could head towards the Grasslands and Alma Kinan. She had spent the last night figuring out where she was relative to the grasslands where Luc was trapped and exactly who Kefka was. He was that crazy dangerous man sealed up with Luc. These people here thought for some reason that he was their god. It did not matter why, she would play along until she was able to save Luc.

"Well, stop standing around and get up there." said one of the Favored pointing to the top of the metal monstrosity. It was a big mass of metal that looked like a demented blacksmith had tried to make a human statue in a fit of madness. Its arms ended in wicked claws and in place of the head was a seat surrounded by more metal. There seemed to be someone up there already.

"Up there." glancing over at the cart that had been tied to the metal thing. _These people are completely mad._

"Yes up there. You are the one who know where to go, so get up there and direct Strago. Get going before I find a way to hasten your steps."

Sarah climbed up the ladder set against the metal thing, to find the old man who had given her water yesterday. "Are you Strago?"

"Yes" said said the old man, "Are you all right?"

"I"m fine. We want to head northwest, I think"

"Right, now take a good grip on the ropes there."

Among the ropes that were connected to the cart bhind them, there was a tied off loop of rope. _I think this is what he meant._ As soon as she grabbed hold of it, Strago pulled one of the bits of metal in front of him. The metal thing jolted forward.

The next few hours were very terror filled for Sarah as she was sure that she was going to fall off any moment. Gradually she realized that she was not going to fall off and die. She looked over at Strago.

"You could run away now" said Strago. He pointed to a tree limb that was going past. "Just grab on to that and you would be gone before I could stop you."

"Why would I do that?" said Sarah, "We are going where I want to."

"You want to release Kefka." he said coldly as he continued to pull and push those bites of metal.

"Kefka wasn't the only one sealed up."Sarah said thinking of Luc's passion for changing the world..

Strago glanced behind them, back to where the Favored were, before saying quietly, "Kefka is going to be a danger to whoever you want to save. I have a plan to get rid if him. Would you be willing to help with it?"

"Why are you offering me this. You hardly know me?"

"I need a second person to pull the plan off. You are the only one available."

"Really that seems like bad planning."

"The events of a few days ago took everyone by surprise."

"That may be true, but," Sarah gestured in the direction of the Favored's cart, "Why shouldn't I go over to them when we stop for the night and tell them of your plans?"

"Two reasons, one if you don't help me then Kefka will kill whoever you are trying to save. Kefka thinks killing people is fun. The second reason is because who do you think they are going to believe. What you know will not save you The moment they think that you won't follow their orders, well let's just say that Kefka told them some ways of controlling people. If you work with me than you get to save whoever-"

"Luc, his name is Luc."

Strago's face softened for a moment, "Luc and you will go have a good life after this is over. However, if you don't help me than I will tell the Favored of your plans to kill Kefka in order to distract them from my own plans. If you are not killed then what you will have left can hardly be called life."

"All right I will help you. What's your plan?"

o Brass Castle o

"I have been asking around about the knights. Apparently Roland is an elf, which some think this is a bit odd since elves are a bit standoffish normally. Seems that there are a number of nonhuman races around here." said Sabin leaning on the table.

Celes was in the wood paneled common room of the inn with Sabin talking over the facts they had found out about the Zexen Knights and other things as the two of them waited for the knights . One thing was sure, things were very different in this new world.

"That is a change. Doing better with inter-species relations then some aren't they?" said Celes, they both knew what The Empire had done to the espers and Celes hated having that knowledge. If only she had been able to stop Kefka, maybe some of them would still be around.

"Yes, thing is I think non-humans are truly different species than humans here. They can't interbreed. I got some weird looks from Reed asking about that too." Sabin was smiling though so obviously the weird looks weren't bothering him.

Celes had read every piece of information that the Empire had collected concerning espers. It had been in her best interest to do so, what with the magic that she had been infused with as a child."Wonder if that text about the Warring Triad transforming humans into espers was true?"

"It would explain things." Sabin said, "Though you know I don't think anyone would look at an esper and say they are -" Sabin broke off as he saw Lily coming over.

Lily demanded "What are you two talking about?"

"None of your business." Celes wasn't sure what Lily would think of their conversation, but it would probably be something stupid.

Lily actually managed to look offended at that, maybe if she hadn't been barging in on a private conversation Cele might actully have believed it.."Well, if we are traveling together it is."

"We won't be traveling together anymore." said Celes getting up from the table so she would have a height advantage if Lily was going to start a confrontation.

"What, just because I want to know what you are talking about?" said Lily her voice rising

"Lily, We have other things that we need to do and so we will going a different direction then you," said Sabin, "We have to part company here."

"You two don't even know what direction I am traveling, now do you? Well do you?" The wide brim of Lily's hat quivering quite ridiculously as she gestured.

"It makes no difference to me,"returned Celes crossing her arms.

Two people in odd heavy armor came up. One of them was Percival. _So the other must be __Roland. He doesn't look much different from a human, except for the ears._ "How are you doing today Celes, Sabin?" Percival said.

"Good, we better get moving if we want to make any time today," replied Celes, glad to have something else besides Lily to concentrate on and wanting to get going.

"Hey where would you be going with the Zexen Knights? How do you even know them anyway?" getting no response from Celes, Lily turned to the Knights, "Well, why do you want to have anything to do with her?"

The one with pointy ears who Celes assumed was Roland said, "She wants to help us find Lady Chris."

"What her? She..." Lily glared at Celes, "Then I am coming along. Chris is my friend and I will help find her."

"No, you'll only slow us down," Celes said as she reached down to grab her small pack. "Let's get going."

"I will not. How could you say such a thing?" Celes just ignored the idiot's screeching, as she headed out the door.

Outside were some of the most odd looking creatures. They stood two heads taller then a Chocobo and they had four legs instead of two. They also had fur, not feathers. Yet these things had saddles and packs on them just like a Chocobo would. Pervical pulled himself easily into the saddle of one of them and gestured for Celes and Sabin to follow suit.

It was better to feel like a fool for asking a question then to not ask the question that needed to be asked, so Celes asked "What are those?"

"Horses, I thought you said you could ride?" said Pervical.

"Yes I can ride, but I have never seen these horses before."

Lily had followed them outside and she had to butt in now. "Then what is it that you know how to ride, goats?"

Sabin answered that question, for he would be able to give a much better answer then Celes would, being that he was a prince of Figaro and admittedly he was less likely to lose his temper.. "Chocobos. They are avian mounts that can run at high speeds."

"So there are more things that are different between the worlds then just the magic?" asked Percival.

"Yes, quite a few things." said Celes _and your fellow knight is one of them._

Lily had to butt in again, "Well if you don't know how to ride then I won't be slowing you down now will I?"

Celes pulled herself up into the saddle of one of the horses. The sattle was different and a lot higher off the ground then one on a chocobo would be.

"Reed, go get me a horse," Lily was yelling as Celes started off to find Terra and Chris, or whoever else they might find.

Riding a horse was odd. Since they had four legs rather then the two a chocobo has the gait was rather odd. Celes was sure that if she was religious, she would have come up with several reasons why these beasts were blasphemous or whatever priest say about things they don't like. Such a thought would be stupid though. _Not the beasts fault that I think it is weird. _Celes' thoughts would probably have continued in this way, but she was interrupted by sounds behind them.

"Really? Couldn't you have found a more fitting mount for me?"

"But milady, you didn't give us much time to find one."

"We didn't have the time. We have to catch up with the Zexen Knights. I don't trust that woman."

_Lily is not going to go away is she..._ "I assure you the feeling is mutral." Celes called out to Lily as she came into view.

"Eep, what are you doing here?"

"What am I doing? You are the ones following us."

"I forgot that you know so little about horses that you would be going slow." Lilly dug her heels into her horse's side. The horse didn't seem to like that and it started rearing up on its hind legs. By the time Celes realized that there was a danger, Percival was already calming the horse down.

"So you will be coming with us then, Lady Lily?" asked Roland.

"Yes" said Lily glaring at Celes for some reason.

"You have to do your share of the work." said Celes

"How dare you imply that I would do something like that?" yelled Lily tossing back her hair.

_This is just too tempting. _ "I didn't imply anything," Said Celes, "I stated it outright."

"Was that a joke I just heard Celes?" said Sabin.

"Of course not, everyone knows I have no sense of humor," replied Celes as they started off again.

o An overhang near Mobliz o

There was a spot in Mobliz that Terra went to when she wanted to be alone. It used to overlook the sea, but no longer. Now there were plains below and a mountain in the distance. All the kids knew to leave her alone when she was there.

The weather was a bit cold, but that was fine. She would be warm soon enough. Terra had not come up here to think this time, but to test her magic. The same magic that had caused so much trouble in the past was back now. She didn't know what to think about being able to kill so easily again.

Feeling lost and adrift without any idea what to do was nothing new for Terra. It was the first thing she remembered feeling when she woke up in Narshe. The feeling was different now and worse in some ways. Before, she didn't know who she was but now she had people she was responsible for, if something went wrong they would be hurt too. Her mother had died trying to protect her from Gestahl, when he had found out that Terra was half Esper. Terra now knew why her mother had done that, because she would be willing to do the same for any of the kids under her care. It was good to finally understand that. Terra doubted that Chris even knew how much it meant to her, when she pointed out that Terra's feelings were actually love.

Terra held out her hand and called fire. A flame came without the slightest effort. It had always been thus, except for this last year. When she had first woken up in Narshe she had been able to do this, but not known why. She knew why now; It was because of her father, Maduin ,being an esper..

Chris had not been able to tell her anything about what happened to Terra's father, or his spirit rather. Maduin had died over a year ago from the Empire's draining tanks, but his spirit still lived on inside of a piece of magicite. He had helped Terra come to an understanding of her powers from there.

There was one last test Terra wanted to do before heading back. She closed her eyes and transformed into her esper form. The transformation seemed to be the same. Terra opened her eyes, looking at her pink fur. She thought about flying up to get an overhead view of the land, but decided that would attract to much attention. She changed back.

Terra once again wished that one of her friends was here. She just knew that there was so many things that she could be doing to help the kids here, but she didn't know what they were. Staying here wasn't going to help anything, but going elsewhere was dangerous. What should she do? If only she had more information, but she didn't even know where to start. Maybe she was going about this the wrong way. Chris might not know any more about how all this happened then she did, but she probably did know concrete details about the towns around, maybe.

o Inside Mobliz o

Chris wanted to be traveling back to Brass Castle right now, but she was in no shape to do so and had been told quite firmly by Terra to rest. So instead she was watching what was going on in this odd little community. Everything, tables, chairs, beds, they all looked worn out and battered up. Terra was off somewhere right now. Katrin and a man Chris assumed was Duane were over by the fireplace washing dishes, from the look of it. One of the children was keeping watching outside the door and the others were huddled together in a corner talking. Every so often they turned to look at her, so it was obvious what they were talking about. Finally one of the children approached her looking nervous.

"Can you tell stories?"

_That was what they wanted to know,_ Chris smiled, "I am not much good at telling them." Then seeing the look of disappointment on the boy's face she said, "but I can tell you a story that my mother told me. I can't promise it will be any good though."

She had pitched her voice so that all of the children could hear this and they soon came over and waited for the story to start.

"The town of Telven was beset with many problems. One was a great bandit horde." Chris had once looked to see if this story was true. It was in a way. It might be better to say the story had a grain of truth, for example in the story bandits that causing trouble but in history it must of been the Harmonian army. "Another was a dragon that had chosen to roust on a nearby mountain. This made the life of the townsfolk hard. What the bandits didn't take, the dragon carried off."

"So what did they do, miss?" asked a little girl wearing a shirt that was too big for her small frame.

Chris had to remind herself that the kid did not mean to be insulting by calling her miss. "Well a young man named Nathaniel was in charge of what was left of the sheep herds. One day as he was watching the sheep he slipped and fell down a hole into a cave. In that cave he found one of the Twenty Seven True Runes, The Dragon Rune."

"What are the True Runes?"

This question startled Chris. Everyone knew what the True Runes were even if they didn't know the names of any of them. "They are...a powerful source of magic. The bearers of True Runes stop aging and become immune to disease." She remembered that when she was little her father said that True Runes were more complicated then that, but that explanation would do for now.

"My older brother said that magic didn't exist."

"Well your brother was an idiot." said another boy "Mama can do magic."

"So what happened next?" asked the same girl as before.

"Well, The True Runes are very powerful and with his Nathaniel was able to tame the dragon. But he didn't stop there, he then went on to drive away the bandits with the dragon he had tamed." Chris did know that someone named Nathaniel had joined Kranch Rugner in the rebellion that lead to the Scarlet Moon Empire and later founded the Dragon Knights.

Apparently the children liked her bad rendition of Nathaniel and the Dragon Rune and wanted another story. Chris knew what to tell this time.

'In the beginning, there was "darkness." Then, the "darkness" shed a "tear." From that "tear," the brothers Sword and Shield were born. Shield claimed it could defend against any attack.  
Sword claimed it could slice through anything. The brothers began a legendary battle."

o * o

When Terra came back inside, some of the kids were listening to Chris tell a story. Chris looked like she was recovering just fine.

"At the end, both Sword and Shield shattered. Sword became the sky, Shield became the earth, and the sparks from the battle became the stars. As for the jewels, they fell to the ground and became the True Runes-The runes that all other runes were born from." finished Chris.

"I'm afraid that I need to talk to Chris right now, so you all will have to wait for another story."

Terra said as she came up to the bed. She so wanted to ask what that story was about but she had just decided she was doing to ask about concrete details, not stories.

"Ah, but she knows really good stories." said Alic

"Maybe she can tell you more of them later. Now go see if Katrin needs any help." Terra turned to Chris as the kids left. "They seem to think you are a good storyteller."

Chris shook her head, "I didn't do the story justice. It was one of the stories my mother used to tell me before she died of that illness."

"You still have a father, don't you?" said Terra hoping she was right about that.

"He disappeared when I was little before my mother took ill actually. Part of the reason I was in the Grasslands was that someone told me that I would find him if I searched for the Flame Champion."

"Um, what do you mean by the Grasslands? From what I saw you were in a forest." Terra sat down on the bed that was next to Chris'.

"Oh, I guess you wouldn't know about the geography of this world, would you?"

"You mean where things are? I wanted to talk with you about that actually."

They were interrupted by the sound of Caspian running down the stairs from his lookout spot, "Mama, there's some people coming."

"What sorta people?" asked Terra

"Um, people like people. One of them's wearing armor."

"Ok let me go see. You stay here. Keep the door closed until I say otherwise."

Terra wasn't sure what to expect. _Would these people end up helping us or would they bring __destruction to this little community._ She didn't know but she would protect the kids with her life if need be. She knew why she felt this way now.

The first thing Terra saw when she got outside was the most awkward suit of armor Terra had ever seen. It looked much too heavy and it didn't seem to fit its owner right. Next to that person was another, a young man with an earnest face. They didn't look like they could bring destruction to anything.

"Hello, I am Thomas, The Castle Master of Budehec Castle. We heard you were out here."

There was a pause. _Am I suppose to introduce myself now?_ "I'm Terra Branford. I guess you could say I'm the mayor of Mobliz." _I think that is the right word to use._

There was a roar and all the sudden it felt like the very earth was vibrating under the footsteps of a great beast. It was Phubaba. The deformed purple creature was one of the monsters that had been released when Kefka caused the world to come undone. He was the biggest threat, for the eight dragons were far away and Doom Gaze usually didn't attack people on the ground. This time Terra would fight him. She had no choice. She just hoped that these people here would be able to help.

o * o

As soon as Terra left up the stairs, Chris pulled herself out of the bed she was in and grabbed her sword. She needed to help Terra.

"Are you sure you should be up?" asked Katrina

"I can help. People respect the Zexen Knights." _And the_ _Silver Maiden, that title was a bit much at times, but could prove useful for once today. _The only group she couldn't help with were the Grasslanders, admittedly for good reason, but it wasn't them that Terra was dealing with now, for they didn't wear armor.

Chris tried to ignore how weak and shaky her legs felt as she crossed the room and started up the stairs. Halfway up she forgot all about being tired, due to hearing the sounds of fighting. She rushed up the rest of the stairs.

The scene outside was different then expected. Terra was facing a giant deformed monster, her sword looking rather puny compared to the monsters bulk. The monster had obviously just swatted two people into a tree. One of them looked to be the castle master of that small little castle with the unpronounceable name.

Chris pulled some magic from her flowing rune, but it was blades of wind, not water, that hit the monster. That didn't make any sense. She had never had a wind rune affixed. She looked down at her hands, there were no runes on them. How was she able to use magic, then? Especially a type of magic that she not only didn't have the rune for, but had never received any training in.

These thoughts did not stop Chris from hitting the monster again with the wind blades, this time killing it When she tried to move forward though she felt a wave of dizziness and she had to grab hold of the door frame to keep from collapsing. She didn't have to hold on for long, however. After Terra checked on the other two she came over and gave Chris a shoulder to lean on.

"Did you wear yourself out? You probably shouldn't even be up yet let alone lobbing magic around," said Terra

Chris just nodded tiredly in response, glad someone seemed to know what was going on.

o * o

Phunbaba had backhanded Thomas and his guard into a tree in the first few moments of the fight. Now that Chris had taken care of Phunbaba Terra went to see if they were still alive.

"Are you alright?" she asked Thomas as he started to get up. He nodded. "Good. It might be best if we finish talking inside." _Why did I say that? I wasn't planning to, it just slipped out. He has nice eyes. Well, anyone who fights that badly isn't likely to hurt any of the kids._

Thomas' guard was fine too, her armor had protected her. Chris, on the other hand, looked worn out, but then she had just been tossing magic around. Terra knew that feeling well and was in fact a bit glad to see it in Chris. For being tired was normal and seeing Chris tired meant it was likely that nothing was wrong with her magic. Right now though Chris could hardly stand. She needed to sit down and have something to drink.

While Terra was helping Chris, Thomas came up. "I never knew you used a wind rune, Lady Chris."

Chris replied that she didn't and had no training in them. This left Terra wondering what exactly these runes were. People kept talking about them whenever magic came up. The next thing Thomas said made any thoughts of runes leave her mind.

_"_I heard that magic changed somehow, but still..."

_If magic has changed then I might lose control of my power again... No I won't let that happen. _Terra tried to keep her voice from trembling as she asked Thomas how magic had changed.

Thomas' reply was simple and not very helpful, "Um, I don't actually know. I was hoping you could tell me."

Before Terra had enough presence of mind to ask what he meant by that Chris spoke up, "I think it would be best to speak about this in a more organized fashion. Terra, do you have a room we could use for a meeting?"

Terra replied that she did and then lead them down the stairs to where everyone lived, still helping to support Chris. The stairs would not be a good place for her to stumble and fall. When they got downstairs Cecile said something Terra did not catch, but Katrin obviously did.

"Nothing, this is not nothing. If it wasn't for Terra then we wouldn't have even this." Terra's face flushed at Katrin's words, she hadn't done that much.

"Sorry I didn't mean it that way," said Cecile, "Um... I'll go guard the door." she madw a great deal of noise as she ran back up the stairs.

As Cecile was leaving Terra explained, "I am going to be talking with Chris and Thomas in my room, Katrin."

"Then I am coming too," said Katrin, "You shouldn't have a strange man in you room without a chaperone."

_A what?_ Terra thought, _I have never heard that word before. How does it have anything to do with talking about magic?_

Chris seemed to understand what Katrin was talking about though. It turned out that a chaperone was a married woman, like Katrin. Why exactly a chaperone was needed escaped Terra right now, but Katrin seemed to think it was important. No one seemed ready to argue the point, so Katrin came along.

Terra's room was small and there wasn't much in it besides the bed. First thing Terra did once they were in her room was to make sure that Chris sat down on the bed and got something to drink. Chris was then the one that started off the meeting.

"First Thomas, you say that magic has changed, how?" That was exactly what Terra wanted to know too.

"Um, this might sound odd, but an older man with black hair and an eyepatch over one eye told me. He was rather unspecific about what was different. The reason I think what he said was true is that the rest of what he said matches up with what Terra told the villagers of Nor." Thomas turned to Terra, "Thank you for helping them by the way."

"I didn't do much of anything."_ It was just a just a couple of Buffalax. They were easy with her magic...Wait a minute..._

While Terra had been thinking, Chris had asked if that man was Geddoe and explained about the knowledge they had gotten when the worlds combined, but Terra wasn't paying much attention to this because she was wondering why she could use magic again.

Chris cut through Terra's thoughts by asking, "Terra, have you noticed any changes?"

"Changes, you mean in magic? Yes, there was some magic that I hadn't been able to use for most of the past year that I can use again now." Terra wasn't sure why her magic had been escaping her grasp, but she was fairly sure, now that she thought about it, that the worlds combining was what made her magic come back

"So you have full use of your powers again now?" asked Chris.

Terra shook her head. "I haven't tried all of them."

"Why not try them now?" asked Thomas

Terra paled, "That would not be a good idea." Terra replied.

"Um, all right, if you say so." said Thomas, "So how does magic work for you anyway?"

"It's complicated." How was she suppose to explain properly without something bad happening. "The Warring Triad gave magic to the espers before they sealed themselves up in stone. So all magic comes from espers."

Katrin decided to speak up now, _Why now, I am having enough trouble getting the words out of my mouth _ "But that's just an old legend-"

"I wish Gestahl had believed that." Terra's eyes filled with tears as she thought of the pain everyone would have been spared from if only Gestahl hadn't decided to seek magic.

Chris brought the conversation back on topic. "What happened to those statues?"

"The statues that were the Warring Triad you mean," At Chris' nod Terra said, "You would know better then me."

Chris looked down at her arm. "How does stone explode? when it isn't actually stone." she said so quietly it could hardly be heard then louder "I guess that explains why I can use magic without a Rune now, doesn't it?"

Terra nodded, "You got very lucky. I...I think that some others that got infused didn't fare well." Those were the dreams that really hurt, even more then the ones about killing while she was wearing the Slave Crown. The ones where they were still working on the infusion process. They would bring the ones they made mistakes on down to where she was kept to see if they could figure out what they did wrong. It hurt, a lot. What was worse now was remembering the faces of the other children. They were just too close to the faces of the kids here.

"So this has happened before?" Chris sounded scared but a bit hopeful too. _Why? There is nothing good about this._

"No, no one has ever been hit with pieces of one of the statues before." Terra stammered out

Chris leaned forward "Then what were you talking about, Terra, please tell me."

Terra didn't know how to explain the things she could not truly remember and her throat was so tight that she doubted she would be able to get any words out even if she knew what to say.

Terra ran out of the room.

o * o

Thomas was surprised when Terra ran out of the room. Both he and Lady Chris looked at Katrin hoping that she would have some idea of why Terra had just run off.

Katrin just shook her head, "Terra never talks about her past."

"You mean she isn't from here," asked Lady Chris.

"No, she just came wandering in shortly after Kefka's Light of Judgement killed..." Katrin stopped for a moment then started again, "Terra said she got separated from her friends. I'm pretty sure Kefka killed them, her friends that is, whoever they were. She started helping us and the reason we are still all alive is because of her help."

"Oh, so you don't... Now is not the time to talk about this." Lady Chris tried to stand up, but fell back onto the bed.

It was fairly obvious what she wanted to do, so Thomas said. "I'll go see if I can find Terra."

Lady Chris nodded, "Good. Katrin, can you talk to the others here and calm them down?"

Thomas didn't wait to hear Katrin's reply. He was up the stairs and outside in moments.

Thomas asked his Commander of the Guards, who was also his only guard "Did you see where Terra went, Cecile?"

"That way," Cecile pointed to the left, "What is-"

It probably would not be the best thing to look intimidating when he found Terraby having a guard with him,

"I'll explain later." Thomas said as he ran off to the left. There wasn't much in that direction but grass and a few bushes.

Soon after he left Cecile behind, Thomas jumped at a sound in the bushes, but it turned out to just be a chipmunk. _This is crazy. _Thought Thomas, _I am running around monster infested wildness with a sword I barely know how to use, and I told Cecile to stay behind because I didn't want to intimidate someone who is a better fighter then both of us. _He continued to look for Terra anyway. After another minute or so of searching he saw Terra's green hair out of the corner of his eye. Her hair was an odd color, but it seemed to fit her so well that it was hard to imagine it being any other color.

_Is she crying?_, "I'm sorry."

Terra looked up at him with tear-stained eyes, "Sorry, what for?"

"What ever made you run off." Thomas scratched the back of his head feeling awkward, "If its something I said or did I am sorry for making you cry."

Terra shoke her head. "It's nothing you did...I...somethings in my past" Terra stopped talking looking sad again.

"You don't need to tell me unless you want to." Thomas remembered one of the villagers saying Terra had a number of scars across her chest. _I better change the subject to something else, _he thought, "It is a nice view from here."

"Yes it is, it used to be of the sea though." Terra said looking out over the land.

"Oh," _not another wrong topic, _"sorry."

Terra stood up, "It's not a bad thing, some changes are good, maybe with you guys here we will be able to survive this coming winter."

"Um for safety's sake the villagers of Nor are staying at Budehec over the winter. Would you like to do the same?"

"You are so completely different from anyone I have ever met before." Terra was beautiful when she smiled; realizing this just made Thomas feel more awkward.

"Me, I'm nothing special. I can hardly fight. I don't know anything about being a leader. There's nothing special about me."

"Yes there is." said Terra, "We better head back. Need to start packing after all"

o The land around Brass Castle o

Between the late start they got and the fact that no one knew quite where the next town would be due to the worlds combining, the only one who was surprised that they ended up camping in the wilderness was Lily.

"We will need to set up watches," Celes stated as Percival set up the fire pit. "Lily, you have first watch."

"What? Why should I have to take a watch? I'll have you know that I am the daughter of the President of Tinto." said Lily tossing her head.

Percival cocked his hand and the rune on it glowed. Fire jumped from his hand to the twigs. _That was different, _thought Celes. She had seen fires lit by Terra's magic before, but it was hard for anyone else to get the fireball small enough.

"Hey are you even listening to me?" said Lily.

"What, never heard of Tinto and even if there was a king here he would have to stand a watch too." Celes wouldn't even have to say anything if Edgar was here.

"Samus-" Called Lily. _Surely she wasn't that much of an idiot._

Celes facepalmed, "You can't order one of your guards to stand watch for you."

"I wasn't... Why not?" Said Lily glaring at Celes.

"They have to stand their own," said Celes wondering just how stupid the girl was.

Lily's eyes flashed with anger. "Fine then, you have to stand it with me. That is what you people do right? Have two people for each watch."

"I was planning to take a later watch," said Celes

"Well, you will be taking first watch with me."

Celes could hear laughter from behind her. "All right, fine." _I bet the idiot doesn't even know first watch is the easiest. _

Celes looked over at the others. Sabin at least had the decency to pretend he hadn't been laughing moments before but Percival was grinning. It was hard to tell what Roland thought of events.

"I trust you jokers will be able to figure out the rest of the watch rotation yourselves."

"Yeah, no problem." said Sabin.

o Chisha Village o

It was evening and the All Clan Meeting had gone fairly well. Sargent Joe had stood in for the Duck Clan chief with proud beak Chief Dupa had been quite agitated though out the whole meeting, judging by the way his tail had been lashing around. Part of that was likely because when they talked about the events of the failed treaty meeting it became obvious that he had been played for a fool. They didn't stay on the topic for more then was needed to understand that it might not be the the Zexens fault. They also didn't spend much time talking about the Harmonian army that had smashed the Safir Clan and had been about to do the same to the Chisha Clan, although normally they would have. Even members of the Safir Clan that had survived agreed that their world combining with another and the immediate question of providing shelter for the displaced during the upcoming winter was of greater importance.

Jimba thought over the facts of the meeting that had just finished as he watched over Yumi. The only clan that hadn't been in attendance was the Alma Kinan clan; This was because Yumi was only member of the clan to known to still be alive and she had not regained consciousness.

_:So, everyone was tricked into fighting with someone called Ironheads. Might I ask who or what are the Ironheads: _asked Maduin.

_:It's a derogatory term for people from the Zexen Confederacy. People from the Grasslands, that's where we are now, have been fighting off and on for the past few years. There's a lot of bad blood because of that. Made it easy for someone to cause trouble using illusions: _replied Jimba.

He would have said more but Yumi started to stir.

"You're awake," said Jimba as Yumi opened her eyes, "How are you feeling?"

"When, what, where?"

"You are in Chisha Village. You fell out of the sky yesterday. I have some-" said Jimba reaching for a bowl of food.

"Please, you have to send some help to Alma Kinan. My people..."

"We tried to We tried, but we can't find the village."

"The spells we placed are keeping you from coming to our aid, aren't they?" Yumi tried to get up.

Jimba pushed her back down, "You are in no shape to be moving around."

"But I must-"

"Look I'll go to the Clan Cheifs and another group will be sent out."

"You will need my help to find it."

"Yes, which means you have to get some rest now so you will be in good enough shape to help." Jimba grabbed a bowl of food off the table. "Here, have something to eat."


	4. Politics, Reunions and Engineers

Chapter 4: Politics, Reunions and Engineers

o Budehuc o

The actual Budehuc castle was set on a hill with the town below it. Truthfully it was more of a village then a town, but Thomas was working on changing that since he had become Castle Master,. At the moment though Thomas was talking to his head of staff, Sebastian. on the front lawn of the castle. Sebastian was a rather portly man with curled light brown hair, who also ran the inn and served as the cook. He was much better at the first two than the last.

"Thomas is this wise? If ..." asked Sebastian wiping his forehead nervously with a handkerchief as he looked at the people coming towards the castle.

"We don't have much choice." Thomas looked out over the people coming as well. It was easy to pick Terra from the others, even without her distinctive hair color it would be easy. "We can't just leave them there. Besides I think with everything that is going on we have been forgotten about."

"Do you really think so?"

_Not entirely_, thought Thomas, "I am sure that the Zexen Council has more important things to deal with right now then us."

"But still the added expense..." groused Sebastian.

Thomas thought of the small, dark underground room that Terra and the kids had been living. "We are going to help them, Sebastian, and that is final." Thomas turned and went down the stone stairs set into the hill to greet his guests.

o * o

Budehuc was a small little place, probably the smallest Terra had ever seen. The fountain in the center of the and the stones around it looked old and worn down, but some of the buildings looked quite new. Thomas was coming down the stairs that lead up to the castle. Terra found herself smiling as he approached.

"Did you have any trouble getting here?"

Terra shook her head, "Didn't see any sign of monsters on the way."

"Um, good. Let me show you where all of you will be staying."

He took them inside the castle past some stairs and down a little hallway with about four rooms on it. Two of them had windows that looked out to the sea. There was just enough room between the castle wall and the cliff edge to escape that way if needed.

"Cool, there is a ship down there." said Alic looking out one of the windows.

"I hope these rooms will be suitable for you," said Thomas. He looked so nervouss for some reason.

Terra smiled, "Thank you, this is wonderful." She put down the pack she was carrying.

"I am glad you like it." Thomas put his hand behind his head, "Uh, if you want I can give you a tour of the town." said Thomas.

"A tour?" Terra looked over at the rooms Thomas had given them. There were any number of things that needed to be done. "I don't..."

Katrin interrupted, "We can take care of things here Terra, so go see what the rest of the place is like."

"Are you sure?" asked Terra

"Yes, go enjoy yourself for once." Katrin seemed pretty insistent. Terra wasn't sure how seeing the layout of a castle was fun, but then she didn't have more then a passing idea of what fun was.

They went down the stairs to the town. At the bottom of the stairs was a grassy area with a fountain in the center, that they had passed though on the way up. Thomas mentioned that this was the town square. There were about four buildings around the square and Terra could see a couple more a bit farther away from the square. Thomas pointed out the inn and front gate, which was just a gap in the worn down wall, before they moved on.

It was at the blacksmiths that Terra got a bit of a shock. The blacksmith was seven feet tall, had scales and a tail. _I wonder how strong his magic is?_

Thomas must have noticed the look on her face, "You've never met...no of course you haven't met anyone from the Lizard Clan. How would you?" Thomas stopped to take a deep breath, "Sorry, Terra this is Peggi, a sacraic of the Lizard Clan, one of the Six Clans of the Grasslands." He turned to the giant Lizard holding a hammer, "Peggi this is Terra, the mayor of Mobliz, one of the towns that was in the other world that combined with ours."

Peggi nodded, "Gotta get back to work." He pointed towards his anvil.

"Yes, of course," said Thomas.

As they left Terra wondered what to ask first. Thomas had acted like Peggi was nothing usual. Did this mean that there were many beings like him? How close were they to espers, her father's people? And, and...

"Sorry about that I just wasn't thinking about the fact that you would never have seen or even heard of the Lizard Clan before. I suppose you want to know about the other races of the world? Said Thomas.

"Other races?" asked Terra confused. She was sure that Thomas was not talking about people running really fast.

"Um, yes, were there other beings besides humans in your world?"

"There were Espers." Terra's shoulders slumped thinking about what had happened to them.

"Sorry I didn't mean to..." He stopped because Terra was looking at him oddly.

"Why do you keep apologizing for things that aren't your fault."

"Um, well you were looking upset, um we have a good library in the castle." He was looking very nervous again, but there was nothing around that was dangerous that Terra could see, so either there was something she wasn't seeing or he was nervous about her. She hated people being scared of her, but he wasn't acting scared just nervous. We could go up there next. There is information on many different subjects there."

Terra said, " I would like to know some about," _Now what was that term Chris used? "_geography."

As they went up to the library, Terra remembered where she had seen that type of nervousness before – in the way Locke had acted around Celes sometimes when they were not in battle. The library itself was a nice room that was well lit by the windows and full of books she wished she knew how to read. She said as much to Thomas.

"How can you not know how?" asked Thomas, He seemed surprised, " I mean, it can't be from lack of intelligence."

"I was never taught." said Terra.

"Why? Didn't your mother...?"

"She was killed when I was two." _by Gestahl. _That Terra could remember although she wasn't sure if it was her memory or her father's.

"Oh sorry, Um I can teach you if you want?"

"I would like that."

Thomas took a leather bound book off one of the shelves and sat down at a table with Terra and proceeded to start to teach her the letters of the alphabet. With everything that was happening, it was several hours before Terra realized she hadn't seen Chris since they got to Budehuc.

o * o

Chris stood back out of the way when Thomas came down the steps to talk to Terra. She didn't want to interfere and was unsure what official attitude to adopt now that she was here. If it wasn't for her position as the Captain of the Zexen Knights, then she would be thanking him most profoundly for his help, but she wasn't just a private citizen and if she made a misstep it wasn't just her that would suffer for it. She had been gone on her reconnaissance mission to the Grasslands for some time, so she was not the most up to date with the events in the Zexen Council.

There were more shops in Budehuc now then there were last time Chris had been here, but did that mean that Thomas had reached an accommodation with the Council or was he still acting in defiance of them? Last time she had came here it was because she and Percival had taken a wrong turn on the road toIksay Village. It had taken the longest time to find out where she was because everyone had thought she was here on purpose. She had ended up getting a whole explanation of why they were letting people open shops without paying the fees required by the Zexen Council, namely they did not have enough incoming revenue to pay for even the most basic of things, before she even found out the name of the place.

"Hey, you're Percival's friend, aren't you?" called out a man off to the side.

Chris turned to see a man in simple farmers clothes that she had met briefly once before when Percival had taken her to Iksay for the Harvest Festival. "You're Bartz, right? What are you doing here?"

"My crops got trampled in that Karyan raid. You were there weren't you?"

"Yes," she had almost gotten killed when some of the raider had recognized her as the Silver Maiden. The last man she had fought there had whispered to her to find the Flame Champion if she wanted to find her father. It turns out that, if the information she now had in her mind was true, that man was her father.

While she had been thinking Bartz had continued talking and she missed his next few words, "...So this is a good place to be. I hope there won't be any more trouble."

"Trouble?" asked Chris

"Yes the Zexen Council has tried to have the Castle Master removed from his postion. I don't like fighting, but I don't want to be running all my life, so I guess I will have to help defend this place if needed. Do you-"

"I have to go." said Chris as she turned and left in a hurry. _What should I do? I need to get back to Brass Castle, but what if the first thing I am ordered to do when I get back its to attack this place?_

o Mobliz o

There were a few sad buildings standing. Celes hadn't ever been to Mobliz before, but she knew that it had been a prosperous if small and out of the way community here before they had failed and that world came to an end. Now it seemed that this town had been hit even worse then other places.

"What happened here?" cried out Lily, her voice sounding quite different without the arrogance that it normally held.

"I had heard that Kefka fried Mobliz but still...I so want to punch him right now." Sabin smacked his fist into his hand.

Celes didn't say anything. She wondered _if I had just moved faster back on the floating continent, then would I have been able to prevent this_. She didn't want to think about that. It might be that all they could do now was...wait that tree. She knelt down by it. It looked like there was a fight here not that long ago. _Don't see any bodies though, probably a good sign._

"We better look around and see what we can find out," she stated getting up.

Most of the buildings that were left weren't even liveable anymore. Truthfully only two of them were even remotely liveable. The one that was further from the cemetery had been inhabited until recently, but there was not anyone here now. All that was left was a few useless scrapes. So whoever had lived here had time to pack up, but did they leave by choice.

The knights were the ones that found the biggest discovery. They recognized some badly tore up clothes, that Celes had just thought were just rags, as belonging to their captain.

"Good so we know that she was here." said Celes, nodding.

"Good, how is knowing that Chris was hurt good?" This was the first thing that Lily had she said since she asked what happened here.

"All ready knew that." Celes said as she looked at the wall, parts of it had been repaired recently. "She was fighting Kefka after all."

"For all we know she could be dead by now." yelled Lily

"No, if she was dead then we would have found a body or a grave."

"There are some graves." Lily yelled gesturing off in the direction of the graveyard they had found earlier..

"But none of them are newly dug, besides her sword would be stuck at the head of the grave if there was one." _Like we did for General Leo. _

"Why would her sword be at the grave? That is the stupidest thing I -" Lily's high pitched annoying voice was stopped by Celes' fist.

"It is a gesture of respect for a great warrior to do so."

Sabin put his hand on Celes shoulder. She would guess that he wanted to stop her from doing anything more, but if that was so he didn't need to worry. Lilly had deserved that punch, but anymore would just be beating up the weak. Celes Cher would never do that again_._

"Oh, oh, I challenge you to a duel."screamed Lilly after a moment or two of looking shocked.

"No" said Celes, she had learned the Soldiers Code of General Leo and she intended to follow it in his memory, "The officer will refrain from needless duels." She turned on her heel, "There are some tracks leading this way. I am going to follow them. It doesn't matter what you do." Celes said as she walked off.

For some reason everyone followed her. They followed the tracks to a rather run down castle. The outer walls were in need of maintenance and the girl who was guarding the front entrance did not look or act like a proper soldier. She was likely to last less then ten minutes in a real fight.

o Budehec o

Chris had been thinking for several hours on how best to deal with this situation without any loss of honor for anyone. This ended when she heard Cecile call out that there were some people coming. Chris recognized most of the people coming up to the castle.

Two of them were knights that she commanded. She was both glad to see them and worried. Glad, for they were good people and they would know more about resent goings on in the Zexen Confederacy. Worried because, why were they here. _Does it have anything to do with that resent council ruling Bartz had mentioned?_

Lily was also in the group. She was in what she called her adventuring clothes, but she was looking more bedraggled then Chris had ever seen her. She also had a black eye. _I wonder why?_ Lily's two attendants were with her.

The other two were a man and a woman. Both had the same lean and tired look that everyone she had met from the other world had, but she didn't look afraid like the people of Mobliz did. The man Chris disregarded for the moment. She didn't know anything about him. The woman though Chris knew of two names that could be the woman's, but which one was it? It was bad enough that she didn't know why she knew the names of people, and even worse what it implied about where her father was.

Chris stepped forward to greet her men and see what she could find out about the others.

"Captain, I see you are unharmed." said Roland once he swung down out of the saddle.

"I was actually hurt quite badly in a fight, but luckily Terra was able to heal me." replied Chris, "What are you doing here?"

"Chris, what is it with the clothes you are wearing?" asked Lily

"Celes said you might have ended up over this way." said Percival, "It looks like she was right."

"Celes, that is her over there is it not?" asked Chris, knowing what the answer would be and not sure of how she felt about that.

"I don't want to talk about that rude person." said Lily over towards Celes

Percival ignored Lily and said, "Yes, how did you know?"

"I'm not sure. I just did." said Chris _That piece of information is true it seems._

"That is strange to say the least." said Roland.

"She is uncouth, obsessed with fighting and, and..." said Lily

"Lily that is the same thing you said about me when we first met." Chris told Lily.

"Any idea how this happened?" asked Roland.

"Well yes, but you never punched me." said Lily completely ignoring the question Roland just asked.

"No, I'm not the only one though, Terra said she knew who I was the moment she saw me." replied Chris. "Wait, is that where you got that black eye?"

"I think that might be be because you had just insulted her people's burial customs." said Roland.

"She doesn't have a people. She said so herself."

"I need to talk to her." said Chris as she turned to head over there. She was hoping that she could quickly find out about if she could trust this information that had appeared in her head and maybe about find out how magic worked in their world.

It didn't turn out that way Celes thought Chris was coming about Lilly's black eye. When the name Dienae was brought up she first didn't recognize it then she started swearing. Some of the swear words Celes used were a bit odd sounding, but then as she was from a different world that made sense.

Sabin stoped her, "Hey not in front of the kid.

"What I would like to know is why I know that name when you didn't." asked Chris _What I would really like to know is if I can trust this name information?_

"Because the thrice be-damned Gestahl apparently decided not to have me be told the name my parents gave me, I would guess." said Celes before getting control of herself. "I have to go see about a place to bed down for the night."

It was obvious from Celes' ice cold tone that the topic was closed. She did bring up a good point though. It was too late in the day to leave, so arrangements would have to be made at the inn.

o Inside Budehec o

The two of them, Terra and Thomas, were still in the library, when Cecile came running up with a loud clatter.

"Some people have come." she said between gasps of breath, "I think some of them are Zexen Knights."

Thomas could run faster than Terra had thought, because he was out the door and down the stairs in a flash. Terra had lots of experence with having to move fast because soldiers had appeared, so she was able to keep up with him, but Cecile was left behind. Outside Chris was talking to some people. Two were men in the same type of heavy armor that Cecile was wearing, although theirs was much better fitted. Two people she had last seen as the airship broke apart were standing there.

Off to the side were Sabin and Celes.

"You're both still alive?"

"Oh come on, Terra. Did you think a little thing like the end of the world was going to kill us?" replied Sabin, striking a ridiculous pose.

"No I guess not," said Terra trying not to laugh, "The others?"

Celes had that stubborn look of hers on as she said,, "We'll find them. They have to have survived."

"Yeah we just need to find where the biggest treasure in the world is. We'll find Locke there." said Sabin. He was only exaggerating slightly.

"It would be good to see him again. You will have to bring him by here after you find him." said Terra

This statement surprised Celes it seemed. She had likely been exspecting Terra to come along "Terra, you-"

Caspian came up, "Mama, who are these people?"

"That's Celes and that Sabin," Terra told him pointing at each of them in turn, "They are good friends of mine."

"Terra, who..."

"Oh sorry, this is Caspian. After the world ended all of the adults of Molbiz died saving the children. I've been taking care of them since then. I am needed here. The kids need me."

"You can't take Mama away!" he grabbed on to Terra's legs, hugging them fircely.

Sabin keeled down so his head was even with Caspian's "Don't worry, kiddo, We aren't going to. We'll just be visiting for a few days. Your mama's going to stay right here where she can take care of you, promise."

Terra smiled glad that Sabin understood. She turned to Celes, but before she could say anything Chris came over.

"I suppose you are going to complain about me hitting your friend." Celes said as soon as sahe saw Chris

"I don't think we have been properly introduced. Should I call you Dienae or Celes?"

"Why would you...Hell!" Celes muttered a number of things regarding how Gestahl had been an awful person, which Terra agreed with. Although for some reason Sabin told Celes she shouldn't be using those words in front of Caspian.

o * o

It had taken a while to find places for everyone, but it had been done. Thomas was now going around to make sure everyone was situated for the night. He had just looked on the villagers of Nor. They were fine and didn't need anything, so next he went to see if Terra, err the people of Mobliz, needed anything.

As he got closer, Thomas could hear a voice booming though the hall that Terra was in. It was, _now what was his name, ah yes, _Sabin's voice.

"So we know what Terra has been doing and I just told you what I've been doing-"

Thomas couldn't catch what was said in response. He did however hear Sabin's reply to it. "Yes at some length, so what have you been doing Celes. You never did say."

Thomas wasn't an eavesdropper, but he had wondered about this. Terra obviously cared deeply about her two friends, but they hadn't been around... They had let her think they were dead for a year.. He put his ear to the door to hear better.

"I was unconscious for most of it..." There was so much raw pain in her voice that he just couldn't stay and hear any more. It was just too personal now, even if he did want to know what happened.

Thomas turned away, took a few steps and almost ran into Duane. They both started appolishing to each other. The whole time Thomas was hoping that Duane didn't think he was eavesdropping on anyone.

"I was looking for you, sir." said Duane. He looked about ready to bow.

"You were, why? And you don't have to call me, sir."

"You are the Castle Master, why wouldn't I call you sir?"

_Because I am a bastard whose father doesn't want to have anything to do with him, _thought Thomas but he said, "Never mind that now. Why were you looking for me?"

"Well I was just finishing up my apprenticeship with the village mason, before... he stopped for a moment before starting again I had actually become a Journeyman the day before the world ended. So I was wondering if you needed any help with repairing the walls here."

_What does he mean by the world ending, _thought Thomas before he realized what Duane was saying, "I would love to have the stonework here fixed. We just haven't had the money to hire someone to come out and fix them."

Duane smiled looking relived, "Then I will get to work tomorrow. What do you have in the way of supplies?"

Thomas winced, "Not much I'm afraid."

"Don't worry the world has been reborn, so the phoenix will see that things will work out."

"What do you mean by that?" Thomas thought that was an odd thing to say.

"Oh the phoenix is said to be able to bring people back to life, since the world has been reborn it just seemed to fit."

"No, what do you mean by the world being reborn."

"The sky is blue and plants are growing."

"But that has always been true."

"I guess that it has for you, but not for us this last year. One year ago the world got torn apart and everything was dying. That is not true anymore though." said Duane, "Well I will bid you a good night then, Lord Thomas. Tomorrow I will have a lot of work to do."

_He really expects that everything will go well. I have to make sure that they do. _Thomas went to go do something that he kept putting off out of nervousness, talk to the Zexen Knights.

The inn was larger then one would expect from a town the size of Budehec. Thomas was given to understand that it had been built when Budehec was a bigger town than it is now. Thomas wished he knew more about the history of this castle, but he had been too busy with more pressing matters. One of which was the reason he was here now.

After everyone had shown up, Lady Chris and the other Zexen Knights had gotten rooms at the inn. Thomas headed there now. Thomas had only been to this inn a few times. When he arrived there, he found that Lady Chris and her friend were at the bathhouse right now and Sir Roland had gone for a walk. Sir Percival was the only one there, so Thomas went to talk to him.

"Sir Percival, er I was wondering if you knew anything about the, um, dispute we are having with the Zexen Council."

"No I haven't," Percival looked at him intently for a moment, "You are a good man, Lord Thomas."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you are," Percival said, "Other men would have decided to hold Lady Chris hostage to force a solution."

"I would never do that." said Thomas, shocked at very thought.

"I know. That is why you are a good man." said Percival

"Um thank you, that doesn't help much though in battle, if it comes to that. Not that I want it to come to that."

"It is getting late so we should be getting to our beds." Percival said getting up. As Thomas had his hand on the door ready to leave Percival said "And, Thomas let us both agree to keep our eyes open for a way out of this mess. You never know what might happen."

"Right, as I was told earlier the phoenix will see that things work out."

o Brass Castle o

The next day dawned with a cold chill in the air. However it was bight and clear and it looked to be staying that way. Perfect weather for traveling, aside from the cold, with a little luck they would be able to get all the way to Brass Castle before nightfall. Even as Chris thought this she mused on how odd that thought was, since a few days ago it would not have taken more then an hour or two at the most to make the same trip.

They were lucky. The trip was uneventful, well as uneventful as a trip though mostly trackless, monster invested wildness can be. They reached Brass Castle before the gates closed for the night.

It was good to return to Brass Castle after everything that had happened. It's walls and bustling city life were comforting to Chris. They went straight away to the Knights Quarters in the center of town.

It was good to be home. All of the knights were glad she was back unharmed. It seemed that none of them wanted to have another new captain so soon after Sir Galahad died. She would have to make sure to stay alive so that didn't happen.

Borus had made it quite clear that he had wanted to be one of the ones to go find her, which was not that surprising. What was surprising was the reason that Salome gave for not having Borus go. He was worried about how Celes would react to him.

"I think that she has seen too much. I have seen eyes like that before, but rarely on one so young."

"Eyes like that?" asked Chris.

"Yes, too many battles and too much pain. People with eyes like that end up lashing out and getting into fights they don't mean to, killing themselves or others because they can't get out of battle mindset."replied Salome while fingering some paper. Chris knew he only did that when he was thinking about something that made him nervous.

To that Percival said, "Well, since she didn't try to kill Lady Lilly, despite the provocation I would say we don't have to worry."

This made Chris worry for Terra, but she probably had a better idea of what to do then Chris did. That did make her think of something else that she needed to talk with her strategist about.

Later when they had a quiet moment Chris told Salome. "I need to collect some information on what the Council plans to do in Budehec."

Interestingly Salome didn't ask why or that he needed time to research it, he just said, "I know that Durabum has been making a fuss about the place. I suspect that he is trying to cover up some misdeed, but I can't figure out what exactly it is."

"Not the most helpful unless we knew what it was he trying." said Chris she then asked "Are the routes to the Capital clear?"

"Yes, it now takes an extra hour to get there and the route is less peaceful now, but it is open."

"I'll set off tomorrow for Vinay del Zexay to give a report to the Council."

o Kuput Forest o

Jimba was worried about Yumi. She looked as pale as death as she parted the veil of illusion that kept Alma Kinan separate from the rest of the world.

It was quieter on the other side of the veil. There were fewer animal sounds and those that could be heard were softer and more muted. This felt so wrong to Jimba, every time he had been here before the forest had, if anything, sounded more alive behind the veil.

A charnel smell reached Jimba's nose before they even reached the village gates. Inside the gates there were still some buildings standing. In fact one house on the far side of town was completely unscathed. Other houses though were completely destroyed by metal wreckage. One thing that Jimba couldn't figure out was where all of the metal had come from; The Alma Kinan used hardly any metal.

"Put the supplies down here while we look around, Belus stay and guard them." said Jimba, "Yumi will you take a couple men and go look to see if there is anyone still alive in the buildings." He didn't want Yumi to see the battle site in her current state. After seeing the expression on her face he added, "If anyone is still alive than they will want to see a familiar face."

The destroyed buildings were bad enough, but things looked even worse when they got closer. They started finding bodies. At first the bodies looked simply like they had been thrown back by a great force. The ones further in were so twisted and distorted or mangled up that I was impossible to tell who they had been. In some cases it was hard to even tell they had been human.

:_Oh shit. Look at the stone shattered around here;_It took Jimba a moment to realize that Maduin had said that.

_ :I think the people are more important: _thought Jimba looking down at the body of one of the villagers. Half of her was a mess of scales and claws. Her face was still human though and it was locked in an expression of terror.

_ :Look at how some of the bodies have been changed. The stone must be from them:_

_ :From who?:_

_ :The Warring Triad:_ replied Maduin, _:They were the source of all magic for the world. If they are ahattered than I don't know what is happening.:_

Jimba had no idea what the Warring Triad was but, "Everyone stay away from the pieces of stone."

Everyone stopped to look at him. In the silence that followed Jimba could hear the faint sound of someone calling for help. He followed sounds to one of the trees.

There was a woman beneath what was left of the tree. In a way she was lucky; she hadn't gotten hit by any of the shards and she hadn't bled to death. In another way she was very unlucky the reason that she hadn't bled to death was because all of her wounds had been cauterized by the fire that had given her those burns she had. Dieing slowly from exposure was not good luck, but still being alive when rescue came might be, if she didn't die in the next few moments that is.

Jimba took a deep breath and started to draw on the True Water Rune's power. Where water runes had some offensive power, they were more known for their healing power. The first choice for healers was a water rune. Since all the water runes descended from the True Water Rune, the healing power of the True Water Rune was immense.

It was not enough to heal the woman all the way though. She was still missing an eye and was so weak that she couldn't stand, but she was still alive.

_:How were you able to use my magic to heal her?: _asked Maduin as soon as Jimba finished with the healing.

_ :Just a moment.: _Jimba toward two of the younger warriors "Arel, Perer could you carry her out of here. Everyone else, see if you can find anyone else that is still alive, but be careful."

Jimba leaned against the tree. _:Now what were you saying about healing?:_

_ :I have never had healing magic, so how were you able to use my magic to heal?:_

_ :The True Water Rune has always had that power.:_ replied Jimba knowing that this was going to be one of those confusing conversations, but maybe he could learn more about magic this way though.

_ :Man that means that I have magic I don't know about. I should know if I have a magic.:_

_ :It is understandable that you wouldn't know all of the powers -:_

_ :No, you don't understand my instincts should have told me.:_

_ :What instincts?:_

_ :The same ones that any magic user has. How else would you know how to use magic?:_

_ :By being taught it by someone who can correct your mistakes, of course, to do otherwise would be too dangerous.:_

_ :What, trying to do magic that way is what is too dangerous.:_

This argument went on for awhile.

There were no other survivors. The only thing to be done was to build a funeral pyre, so that the souls of the Alma Kinan clan would be one with the Spirits once again. Jimba had fought to save all the Clans fifty years ago. It seemed most unfair that he would now see the end of one of them, but Jimba knew that life was not fair. He had seen plenty of evidence of this in his extended life.

He sent some of the men to gather firewood, telling them to take care not to get outside the boundary, and asked others, who he judged more able to deal with the death all around, to prepare the bodies. He then went back to where the supplies were to tell the people there what was going on.

On the way back he asked Maduin if he could explain more about what the stone might do.

Maduin replied _:I'm not really sure, but pieces of dead Gods are not likely to be good for ones health.: _With those words came a wave of conflicted emotions among them were fear and a sense of failure.

Jimba remembered his vision and got pale_ :You promised she was still alive.:_

_ :What?...Oh Chris is. The reason I said she was still alive was because her name is one I know from the list you were complaining about. Everyone on that list is alive:_

Jimba couldn't help but think of all the things that could happen to a person that were worse than death. He took that thought and put it into a mental box until he could finish with this task.

Yumi was talking with the woman he saved, but as soon as she saw him she got up.

"There was not one house that was unscathed." Yumi said rather tonelessly.

_That is not good. It sounds like she is past her limits both physically and mentally. _"Are you alright."

"I have to be." said Yumi with a hint of the pain she must be feeling creeping into her voice.

"Here walk with me. I would like to make sure I don't end up not being able to make it back."

They walked for a little ways without talking. At the very least they were getting away from the smell of death for a little while. Jimba turned to Yumi, but before he could say anything she spoke.

"If you are going to say something about heading back to Chista, than don't bother. I will be here when my clan is sent off to the spirits. It is my right."

Jimba did not have time to make any response to that for a series of crashes echoed though the air. These sounds were coming closer. They peeked though the trees and saw a beast of metal with people on it and more being pulled behind it.

_:Magitek Armor:_ Jimba could detect the rage in Maduin's voice, but now was not the time to ask about that, for Yumi had notched an arrow on to her bow. She sent it flying towards one of the people on top of the metal monstrosity. The machine turned towards them.

_ :A bolt spell should work.:_

_ :What! Geddoe isn't here to do one .:_

_:Jimba, just open yourself up for some magic.:_Maduin sounded like he would be gritting his teeth if he had any to grit.

Jimba did so and next thing he knew the Armor was being hit by a lightning bolt.

Things were still for a moment. Jimba just had time to realize that he had no idea who they were fighting or why, before he had to dodge out of the way of some incoming fireballs., there were two men rushing them. Yumi took one down with an arrow and Jimba took down the other with his sword. He turned towards the others standing further off. Were they going to attack next? They turned and left instead.

He held up his hand to stop Yumi from presueing the enemy.

"If you get yourself killed than you won't be able to light the funeral pyre." said Jimba as he thought _:Maduin we have to talk.:_

_ :You want to know why I was so ready to attack. If you knew how many died to create that thing you would not have to ask:_

o*o

_We are almost there. _Thought Sarah, as she kept low so she wasn't hit by any low hanging branches. That thought would have made her happy even if they were not going to save Luc, just because it meant she would be getting off this hunk of moving metal. She didn't care how the thing worked. She just wanted to get off.

An arrow pierced Sarah's arm before she even had a chance to notice let go of the rope in surprise. Then the metal she was on moved under her. She scrambled to grab hold of the rope as she started slide off, but she was unable to.

The fall was long enough to knock the breath out of her._ I just got shot. Who shot me? _Thought Sarah as she looked at the arrow in her shoulder. She looked up to see a bolt of lightning strike the metal monstrosity. She would have thought this to be magic if the direction wasn't all wrong. The tree cover wasn't so thick that someone could have gotten above them. What would be the point of attacking from that direction anyway? One would get the same effect much easier attacking from the side.

"You all right, Sarah?"called out Strago.

"How?"

"I can smell it in the air when someone is about to use a Bolt spell."

"But..." she didn't know what she was going to say.

"Here hold still." Strago snapped the arrow in half and pulled it out, "I don't have any Cure magic. Do you?"

_Cure magic, that is an odd way to phase it. _Thought Sarah and she shoke her head.

"Well we will just have to do without magic than." He got up, "I'll go see what there in in the way of medical supplies."

Moments after Stago left, some of the Favored came though the trees. They looked like they had been in a fight.

"There is no way this was just luck." He glared at Sarah, "You better not have just lead us into an ambush, girl."

"I did no such thing." said Sarah primly.

The man slammed her up against a tree. "Liar, than how did they know we would be here than," He hit Sarah's wounded arm causing her to cry out, "Who are you working for?"

"I'm not working for anyone." cried out Sarah as he brought his arm back for another punch.

That punch didn't fall though, one of the other Favored stopped him by saying "She might be telling the truth. After all who would be stupid enough to stay with the group they just lead into an ambush."

"Maybe, but we should make sure she isn't keeping any secrets from us."

"You can have your fun later, Dyan. If she disobeys orders you can have her." he turned to Sarah, "Now girl, use your superior knowledge to tell us where we should go now."

"Vinay del Zexay." Sarah said quickly, naming a place a random, _Durabum is there. He can help with getting rid of the grasslanders._ "Some people there will be only too glad to meet you."

o Council Hall in Vinay del Zexay o

Chris was striding down the wood paneled hall of the Council building when she almost ran into a man she had never seen before. He was a handsome man with long blonde hair. His clothes were richly dyed and cut in such an odd style, but they were a bit more worn then one would exspect.

"Beautiful lady, might I introduce myself?" If that was a question this blonde haired man gave Chris no time to answer it. "I am King Edgar of Figaro. As I am a foreigner in these parts, I was wondering if I could prevail upon one such as you to show one such as me around."

A blush rose to Chris' face. This man was being very blatant wasn't he. "I have to give a report to the Council."

"Ah, then we are going the same way," he said with a bow, "for due to our worlds combining somehow I am forced to start diplomatic relations with this country from a cold start."

Chris had never before heard the phase 'from a cold start' before. It seemed that this man was also from that other world. Ah that must be it difference in culture that's why he seems to be flirting.

With all that was going on it was not surprising that the Council was doing several things at once, such as listening to a report from the Captain of the Zexen Knights and meeting with a foreign king.

The Council didn't want a full report of what Chris had found out. They immediately got into a discussion on how best to use the Zexen Knights, without touching on the points she had brought up about giving aid to Mobliz and reaching some accommodation with Budehec.

"First and foremost we need to secure our borders." said Durabum.

"As the esteemed Durabum should remember we are a merchant nation, if we don't get the trade routes re-established then we won't have the resources to secure the borders like he wants." said Lowma.

"If we are not able to keep our borders secure, then how are we to convince other lands to trade with ours if our roads are not safe?" Durabum said banging his hands on the table.

"You could do both, you know." Edgar drawled. He hadn't given any indacation of paying attention and Chris had forgotten that he was there.

After a moment Councilor Achden said, "And what would the King of Figaro know about the internal affairs of this land?"

"Absolutely nothing," said Edgar, he turned to Chris. "Captain, do your men have a good supply of rope on hand?"

A question like that surprised Chris, but she did have an answer to it, "Yes."

"Lay some across an area that you know Delta Bugs are. They will always go investigate anything new. You can then pull on the rope to topple them over. They can be easily killed that way." Edgar said then he turned and looked at the Councilors. "Knowing the habits and weaknesses of the monsters reduces the number of soldiers needed for the task. That way you will have the troops to re-establish trade routes."

"Ah, and what will it cost us to get information about the monsters?"

"Well, the currency point we have been discussing, maybe," said Edgar

"We will have the papers drawn up." the Councilor gestured to an assistant to go take care of the matter.

"And I would like to have some information about the other countries."

"You can talk to Lady Chris about that when you tell her the monster weaknesses," said Lowma.

"I always look forward to talking with a beautiful lady." said Edgar grinning roguishly.

After that the Council meeting went on for several hours without getting much of anything done. Just a lot of talking, then deciding to break for the night without getting anything else decided.

o Vinay del Zexay o

When Chris exited the Council Hall her squire, Louis was there waiting for her. He handed Chris her sword and asked her how the meeting went. She was not able to answer him because Edgar came up at that moment.

"Shall we go to someplace more suitable for conversing, my lady?" asked Edgar in rather honeyed tones.

"And why would we need such a place?" asked Chris glaring at him.

"So I don't look like a complete fool in front of everyone when you explain to me about other countries." Edgar said with a smile.

"Sire, your sword." said, well Chris wasn't sure if the man was Edgar's bodyguard or manservant and it would be rude to ask.

"Thank you, Lalt." The sword Edgar took and tucked into his sash was an odd one. It was curved and the hilt had a disc shaped pommel with a spike in the center.

Chris looked up at the sky as they stepped outside. _Wrong time of day to go to an inn or public house of some kind, they will be too crowded. Bother appropriate, I am taking the easy way. _"Follow me."

As they started off Edgar asked, "If I may be a blunt idiot for a minute, might I ask if there is some cultural reason I don't get for talking for hours about noting when in the Council Hall?" Edgar's voice sounded confused, but his eyes sparkled with laughter.

Chris thought, _No they should be working on dealing with this problem instead of playing power games._ But she knew that was not something she should say out loud, let alone to a foreign king. Instead she just asked. "Oh and how would you deal with this in Figaro?"

"Well, lets see, normally my advisers would argue about the matter for several day before making up their minds."

"How is that different then what was going on in there?"

"Ah, but if I feel they are dragging their feet for no good reason then they aren't my adviser anymore." Edgar grinned as he said this.

"Very funny," said Chris trying not to smile, "Somehow I doubt it is that easy."

"It can get complicated at times, but my chancellor helps. Unfortunately now is not one of those complicated times." Edgar said looking down at the cobblestones he was walking over.

Louis spoke up then, "Why unfortunately sir, if you don't mind me asking?"

"It is unfortunate, because most of my advisers are dead now. We came though better then..." Edgar stopped looking morose, and Chris thought she had a good idea why.

"Better then Mobliz you mean?"

"Yes, I heard that town was hit pretty hard by," Edgar paused for a moment, "The aftermath of the Floating Continent."

"What do you mean?" Chris knew something had happened, but she hadn't heard anything about a Floating Continent.

"Emperor Gesthal and the last of his generals tore up the Esper World to get their hands on the source of magic for our world. We tried to stop them, but failed. I don't know if any of the others are still alive. So truthfully how badly was Mobliz destroyed?"

"Well Terra is-"

"Wait... did you say Terra?" exclaimed Edgar light in his eyes. He looked, well, hopeful, "Just to make sure this Terra is a young woman with green hair, right?"

"Yes, now why are you asking about her?"

"Terra was one of the the people who was with King Edgar on the Floating Continent." said Edgar's guard.

"Oh," _Why was a healer like Terra there? _"We're here."

_ "_Nice, is this your place? I like the garden."

The garden he was referring to was full of a number of different flowers and flowering bushes. Chris remembered, as she always did, how much her mother had loved the gardens when she was alive.

Chris turned to her squire, "Louis, will you take a message to your father for me when you go home?"

"Yes ma'am, what is the message?"

"Tell him I have the King of Figaro here and would like his advice on current affairs."

Louis nodded and went off towards the Keeferson manor.

Chris turned to Edgar, who was finishing up with his instructions to his man.

"Are you sure, sire?"

"I think I can manage to take care of myself for a few hours," said Edgar, "What is more important is you going and getting that coal."

"You never did explain what Emperor Gesthal and his general had to do with a continent that was floating." said Chris as she and Edgar went though the front doorway of the Lightfellow Manor.

"If I told you that they ripped up part of the land and made it float in the air would you believe me?" replied Edgar.

"No."

"Then I didn't say any such thing."

Chris was saved from having to come up with an reply to that statement by her butler coming into the front hall.

"Welcome home, milady."

"Thank you. There should be two guests for supper tonight. I am sorry about the late notice." Chris told Prion as she walked inside, "This is the King of Figaro. I will be speaking with him in the drawing room. Please inform me when Polenth Keeferson arrives."

"Yes, milady" Prion said. Chris knew he would do just that for he had been loyally serving the Lightfellow family since before she was born.

The drawing room was much the same as always. Chris could remember her mother receiving visitors here and vaguely remembered her parents laughing together after a dinner party.

"I think it would be best if we talked about the monsters first and politics after Polenth arrives." Chris said turning to face Edgar.

"As you wish, Beautiful." said Edgar with an overblown bow.

"I have a name you know. It is Chris."

"All right Chris, might I ask who Polenth is?"

"He is an old family friend. He used to be on the Council so he knows more about the conditions of other countries then I do." She gestured for Edgar to sit down. They both sat in the neatly upholstered chairs. Then Edgar then started to tell about how fire could kill bloompires and how to trap buffalax. This went on for some time.

"Milady, Polenth Keeferson is here." Prion stood back out of the way so that the brown haired bespectacled man could get by.

Chris rose to he feet, "Thank you for coming. You are looking well."

"You look like you have been overworking again. Tasia said to make sure to invite you over for dinner at some point."

"Not sure how long I will be in town this time." said Chris, "This is Edgar, The King of Figaro. I was asked to tell him some about the other countries."

Polenth inclined his head, "I am pleased to meet someone from this other world I have heard about."

"Everyone keeps acting like there are two completely separate and different worlds." said Edgar, "But the reality is that there is only one and we are just going to have to deal with that fact."

"True enough, but why the bitterness? The Council being problematic?" Chris didn't see any visible reaction from Edgar, but Polenth must have, "Don't worry, I do think that some of those men should not be on the Council."

Chris was torn between agreement and feeling that it might be her duty to defend the council members, so she didn't say anything.

"Oh do you mind telling me some about these Councilors?"

"You should be careful of Lowma. He has a tendency to get rid of things that he no longer needs." said Polenth. "and Durabum has a nervous temperament, that he hides by being a bully, and he has a bad want for power."

" I believe that either of them will be more trustworthy then some of the people I have dealt with. Of course that is not saying much since one of the people I was forced to deal with tried to burn down my castle." replied Edgar.

Before Chris could figure out how to respond to that over the top statement, Prion opened the door.

"Dinner is ready, milady, sirs."

"Thank you," said Chris, "Shall we continue this over food?"

"Of course."

_It is nice to see more then one place set at the table,_ thought Chris as she walked into the dining hall with Edgar and Polenth.

The first course was a sweet potato soup with pecans. The taste of the sweet potatoes melded well with the onions and garlic. The discussion was mostly concerning Harmonia to the north.

"First it does not take long to figure out that Harmonia has been a dominate force in this world for many years, even the calender we use is based on the Harmonian one. To be fair they have made a number of positive cultural achievements, but-" said Polenth.

"Let me guess they are draining energy from people to power their war machines," Edgar looked perfectly serious as he said this, but there was no way he could be.

"Please don't make stupid jokes. Their society is built on the backs of slaves. Harmonia is very dangerous when it is not in the middle of fractional infighting." Polenth went on to give other basic information about Harmonia such as that is was a theocracy ruled by Hikusaak, the bearer of the Circle Rune and that it used to be even larger then it is now.

The next course was Salmon baked in a mustard honey mixture. The salmon was fresh caught. It was likely that it had been bought at the port less then an hour ago.

There was one thing Chris noticed, Edgar was very careful about eating. He was always the last one to try any piece of food. The way he did this was so inconspicuous that she almost hadn't noticed it. That kind of careful action was at odds with much of what she had seen of him so far.

The last course was the dessert. It was bittersweet chocolate tartlets.

Polenth was half way though a explanation on Tinto's economy, when Edgar interrupted.,

"Wait so what are the water gems mined there were used for?"

"They are used to create the common runes that are used in everyday life."

Edgar's next question surprised Chris "Ok, now what are runes?"

"How can you not know what runes are?"

"I think the answer to that should be obvious."

"But haven't you seen the shops?" asked Polenth, "Sorry never mind, runes are how we use magic."

"Wait, so you can just go to the store and buy magic?" said Edgar looking pale.

"Yes that is you can have a Rune Master or Mistress affix a rune on your hand. With the proper training you can use the magic within it." said Polenth

Chris remembered the other reactions people from the other world had to magic and asked, "Edgar how does magic work in your world?"

Edgar paused for a moment then said, "It is very rare. Most people didn't even believe that it existed at all. But the Emperor of one of the southern countries did and decided to use magic to conquer the world. There are three ways to get it. One is to be born with magic. The second is a very dangerous magical infusion. The third is though magicite."

"Judging by what Celes said I take it those last two are not very nice."said Chris.

Edgar put down his fork, "When did you run into Celes, and is there anyone else you have run into I should know about?"

"She helped some of my Knights find me and there had been a man with Celes. Now that I think about it he did look a bit like you, Edgar."

"How do I get there?" Edgar asked as soon as she finished

"What?"

"That man happens to be my brother."

"I'll show you where Budehec is on the map, but I am not sure how helpful that will be with how everything has changed."

"Good, is there any way I can get up there soon without mortally offending the Council here."

"It will take a few days and no matter what you do some members of the Council will be offended." said Polenth.

"That is a risk I will have to take. Now I had better return to my ship before the crew decides that I managed to seduce you Chris." Edgar turned and left.

Polenth turned to Chris,"What was that about?'"

"I don't know." said Chris, "I need to get some sleep."

"Chris, what is bothering you? And don't say that it is nothing or that it is something to do with the worlds combining because I can tell it isn't."

"Too many things, one is that_ w_hile I was on my reconnaissance mission I found out that my father is still alive." Chris did not say 'he must have decided to abandon me and mother' but it was heard. "I shouldn't be worrying so much about what is just a personal issue right now."

"Chris I assure you, your father would not have left if he had any choice in the matter. He loved you and Anna."

"Then why is he living among the Karayan? Why is he Jimba now instead of Wyatt? Why?"

"I can't answer that exactly, although I have some guesses. I do know that before he disappeared he was very worried about some people that had shown up in the city. When I checked into it more thoroughly later, I found that those people were Harmonians and I think one of them was a member of the Howling Voice Guild."

"Oh," said Chris that was not she had excepted to hear, "What would they want with my father?"

"None of my agents were able to find that out, but Harmonians are always after True Runes."

"And my father had...has the True Water Rune."

"Chris, I am sure everything will work out somehow."

"You are being an optimist," said Chris. "Good night."

Polenth left and Chris went up to her rooms. By all rights Chris could have moved into the Master Bedroom, but she never had. It just didn't seem right.


End file.
